COP26 begins in Glasgow: Indian researchers launch tracking website to ‘debunk the narrative provided by many developed countries’

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 31

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The United Nations climate summit, the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26), formally opened on Sunday in Glasgow, kicking off two weeks of hectic diplomatic negotiations among countries or parties to arrive at a common meeting ground to tackle the challenge of global warming—construct a consensus on unresolved issues of the Paris Agreement Rule Book, long-term climate finance, market-based mechanisms, etc.

The 2019 talks had ended with no action being taken and there are high expectations from Glasgow where speaker after speaker today urged world leaders to fully implement the Paris Agreement and commit to more climate action to limit global warming to less than 1.5-degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

UK’s Alok Sharma, a British MP and the President of COP26, called on countries of the world to work together, terming Glasgow summit the “last, best hope to keep 1.5C in reach”.

A glacier in Antarctica was also named after the summit.

Things are not expected to go easy as developing countries like India want global climate action to be guided by principles and values of climate justice and equity.

India, which will pitch for technology transfer and climate finance—the two factors essential for a “level playing field between developed and developing countries” — today launched a tracking website to “build awareness, especially among the public of the global south, that climate action is a global collective action problem”.

Built by private researchers, the website “Climate Equity Monitor” on global climate policy will monitor the performance of Annex-I Parties under the UNFCCC (developed countries) based on the foundational principles of the Climate Convention —equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC).

The performance and policies of the Non-Annex-I Parties (developing countries) will be also provided for comparison.

The website aims to “debunk the narrative provided by many developed countries, and global non-government organisations that focus attention continually on what developing countries must do, constantly demanding greater commitment and action from them”, officials said.

Welcoming the initiative, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said the website focusing on equity and climate action from a data and evidence-based perspective will encourage a vigorous discussion on this crucial issue and engage experts from all countries.

The Monitor provides an online dashboard for assessing, at the international level, equity in climate action, inequalities in emissions, energy and resource consumption across the world, and ongoing climate policies of several countries. It has conceptualised and developed by independent researchers from India, according to an official statement

“In keeping with the latest scientific results of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that have underlined the importance of cumulative emissions and carbon budgets, the analysis will be anchored in these two concepts. The equitable sharing of the global carbon budget is the fundamental equity principle that will underpin the assessments that will progressively appear on the website,” officials said

The existing “tracking” websites on climate policies are based in the global North and routinely do not address the crucial aspects of equity and differentiation. Other websites, according to the researchers, bury the key issues in complexities that are not transparently dealt with.

The website is expected to be a valuable tool for policy makers, public institutions, researchers, academics, students, and the general public from developing countries to keep equity and climate justice considerations clearly in view in their perspective. The website will also undergo constant upgradation with additional new material, including the addition of new areas such as climate finance, technology transfer and adaptation, they added.

Top world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, will attend the high-level segment on Monday and Tuesday

In days that follow issues on the agenda for decades will be discussed. Upset over the slow pace so far, environmental activists are expected to stage protests during the summit.

Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change: “We stand at a pivotal point in history. Humanity faces several stark but clear choices. We either choose to achieve rapid and large-scale reductions of emissions to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C— or we accept that humanity faces a bleak future on this planet”.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson: “Glasgow represents our best chance. Just as the G-20 shares a collective responsibility to act, so the solutions are in our hands. I hope countries will gather next week in a spirit of responsibility and ambition so we can keep the goal of 1.5 degrees alive”.