The 26th annual Conference of Parties (COP26) starts this week in Glasgow (UK), organised by the governments of the United Kingdom and Italy. The conference is held one year after the originally scheduled date, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the meeting goals are nothing short of ambitious. 

The Conferences of Parties have been organised every year since 1995 by the United Nations, in the context of the action against human-induced climate change. There is now no doubt about the massive role played by mankind on causing climate change: the almost totality of the scientific research confirms that. Awarding the Nobel Prize 2021 to two scientists who dedicated their life to study climate change is yet another sign of the robustness of climate science.

The last important outcome of the COP process was the Paris Agreement in 2015, adopted by almost all the world countries. What led to the approval of this  agreement was a masterpiece in diplomacy, given the enormous effort of reconciling very different positions of the participating countries. The severity of the measures included in the agreement are unprecedented in history. However, the difficult part begins now. In fact, the key parts of the agreement require that promises are matched with facts, but the latter are missing for now. 

Based on numerical simulations performed by present climate models, current emissions will lead us to almost 3°C in global average temperature higher than the pre-industrial period, i.e. before human activities began to release large amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

The current pledges of individual countries within the Paris Agreement aim to limit the increase of global-mean temperature to 2.4°C. Unfortunately this is not enough, because every digit counts. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an increase of more than 2°C in fact entails both social and economic risk. An example is the increasing number of extreme events; many of these are directly linked to human activities, such as the recent increase in fires and heatwaves worldwide. The IPCC even published a special report on the importance of not exceeding the threshold of 1.5°C, which is exactly the main objective of COP26. 

The most recent contribution of the same IPCC goes even more in detail on the role of human activities in climate change, as well as on the importance of acting quickly to mitigate the most dangerous effects, given that we have already accomplished a 1°C temperature increase. Unfortunately, the lack of action of national governments and major economic players on this matter is causing the rise of a new social phenomenon called climate anxiety by the psychologists, especially among the young. 

In this scenario, COP26 starts with huge expectations. Never has the awareness of the issue been greater, yet there is certainly the fear that another opportunity will be missed. A justified fear, considering that, after the small pandemic-related reduction, greenhouse gas emissions have lately started running again. It is therefore important that we continue to play our role, calling for stronger action from governments and industry. Never like before, we are all on the same boat.

Note: The original version of this article can be found here: https://www.noidiminerva.it/il-clima-e-cambiato/.