Failure to act on Glasgow commitments will be self-harm, says COP26 president

Alok Sharma, president of the 26th UN climate conference (COP26), says failure of countries to meet their climate commitments at the COP will be “an act of monstrous self-harm”.

According to The Guardian UK, he said this while visiting Glasgow to mark six months since COP26 ended.

At COP26 which ended on November 13, 2021 countries had committed to reduce emissions and limit global heating to 1.5C.

Sharma said the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighting global crises should increase nations’ determination to cut greenhouse gas commitments made in the Glasgow climate pact.

“Failure to act on the promises made at the Glasgow Cop26 climate summit last year would be an act of monstrous self-harm,” Sharma said. 

“The current crises should increase, not diminish, our determination to deliver on what we agreed here at COP26, and honour the Glasgow climate pact,

“Responding to those changes by reneging on climate commitments would only result in worse damage,

He said world leaders should show that “though the world has changed, our resolve has not”.

He said the Russia-Ukraine war has caused rising energy and food prices and changed the global outlook in the past six months.

Sharma asked countries to “pick up the pace” and make fresh commitments in line with stark warnings from the IPCC new reports and global climate shocks and crisis.

“The window of time we have to act is closing fast [and] we must urgently adapt and reduce emissions, because current targets are not enough,” he added.

“Every country must respond to the call to revisit and strengthen their NDCs, and they must do so in 2022. The Glasgow pact calls on countries to look again at their NDCs, not at some vague point in the future, but this year, in 2022.”

COP27 climate conference will take place in Egypt in November, 2022 and countries are expected to return with strengthened commitments.