What will happen at COP26?

In our last article, we took a whistle-stop tour of some of the previous international climate conferences and the outcomes they produced, in order to better understand the path we’ve been on that has led us to COP26 in Glasgow.

In this article, we’re going to turn our attention to what we can expect from COP26.

We’ll explore both what the conference will look like – such as how it works, who will be there (and who won’t) – and also what kinds of things we can expect to happen, as a result of the conference negotiations.

How does COP take shape as an event?

The Glasgow conference itself will take place at SEC Glasgow, a conference and events venue in the heart of the city. Activities related to COP will extend far outside the conference centre though, and there will be lots of things happening all over the city – and all over the world – during the 12 days of the COP.

Within the conference itself, there are two zones: the Blue Zone and the Green Zone. The Blue Zone is run by the United Nations and is reserved for official delegates – politicians and negotiators, observers, and nominated delegates from NGOs and the media.

The Green Zone is managed by the host government (the UK government in this case) and is the part of the conference proceedings which is open to the public, and so within the Green Zone there will be performances, activities, music, workshops and more taking place involving visitors to the COP. The full schedule of events in the Green Zone was published recently, if you’re interested to take a look.

The broader schedule for the conference, published in the official Presidency Programme, maps out the different themes which will be discussed each day, after the COP opens with the two-day World Leaders’ Summit. These are (in order): Finance; Energy; Youth and Public Empowerment; Nature; Adaptation, Loss and Damage; Gender; Science and Innovation; Transport; Cities, Regions and Built Environment; and finally, the Closure of Negotiations. 

At the end of the conference, it is typical for there to be a closing plenary session, and if significant agreements are reached during the negotiations, like they were in Paris in 2015, there is likely to be some form of announcement at the end.

What are the specific aims of the COP?

The COP is jointly hosted by Italy and the UK, and has specific aims which you can read about in the conference’s “COP26 Explained” publication. These are:

• Secure global net-zero by 2050 and keep 1.5ºC warming within reach;
• Adapt to protect communities and natural habitats;
• Mobilise finance, by raising and delivering climate finance from developed countries. 
• Work together to deliver – turning ambitions into actions. 

Crucially, the recently published Working Group I contribution to the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the IPCC noted that under all five of the emissions scenarios scrutinised, none of them shows us avoiding 1.5ºC warming, and projects that we are currently likely on track for somewhere between 2.1ºC to 3.5ºC warming before the end of this century.

This means that in order for COP26 to be “successful” (according to its own stated aims), it will need to produce some of the most assertive and ambitious climate commitment outcomes that we have seen to date.

What is going to happen whilst the conference is taking place?

Proceedings within the conference itself will follow the Presidency Programme, and there will be a large number of other related activities taking place in the Green Zone as well.

Throughout the COP, news will trickle through each day, and no doubt key developments, predictions, and reactions will be discussed on evening news channels and late-night political programmes each evening. The BBC have released a guide to their COP-related broadcasting output during the two weeks, and other media channels will most likely follow suit. There’s even going to be a climate change-related crossover storyline between several popular British soap operas on TV during the COP.

Whether you’re going to be glued to the news throughout the conference, or just catching it at the end of the day, you can use the Climate Coalition’s handy “Jargon Buster” to help you understand some of the technical terms that will be used by public figures and journalists during the COP.

It’s likely there will be a lot of activity on the ground in Glasgow from businesses, NGOs and other interests to push for certain policy outcomes – and, sadly, many polluting businesses will spend lots of energy on trying to publicly greenwash themselves whilst COP is taking place. Be sure to read up on how to spot greenwashing so you can catch this when it happens.

It’s possible that there will be protests, marches and other activations around the world during or just before the COP as well. This is what happened in Paris for COP 21 in 2015 – where 800,000 people marched for climate change around the world just as the COP was starting. We mentioned one march taking place during COP, organised by the COP26 Coalition, in our last article – but there will be others too.

What outcomes can we expect from COP?

This is a tricky question to answer, as so much will be unclear until the end of the conference – and some things will still be unclear, even then!

COP26 is intended to be the first implementation of the ‘ratchet mechanism’ from the Paris Agreement – this is the mechanism by which all parties’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs – the emissions reductions plans set by nations individually) are meant to increase their ambition every 5 years.

At the time of writing, the Climate Watch NDC Enhancement Tracker is showing that 144 countries, representing 54.8% of global emissions, have submitted a new or updated NDC ahead of COP26. There are 195 Parties to the Paris Agreement in total, and some big emitters like China have yet to submit ‘ratcheted’ NDCs. It’s also unclear whether some world leaders – including Xi Jinping, of China – are going to attend the conference (though often these arrangements and announcements are made at the very last minute, so this could change).

Here are some of the possible outcomes that we’ll be looking out for at COP26:

1. Additional climate pledges. There will be loads of these – mostly pertaining to the phase-out of coal, and the roll-out of electric vehicles, but it’s important to drill down into these new commitments to see whether they are substantial, or just talk. 

Keep an eye out for new climate policies and pledges that come up – are they realistic? Are they legally binding? Is there an enforcement mechanism? Do the parties actually look like they plan to implement them?

2. Progress on climate justice. The UK Youth Climate Coalition has published its Youth Demands for Climate Justice – a call for the UK government to achieve climate justice on the national and international stage. The COP is already controversial because of its exclusivity and inaccessibility to many delegates from the Global South. There’s also the issue of the $100 billion annual sum in climate finance that richer countries had pledged to give to developing countries back in 2009 – which so far, has never materialised.

Keep an eye out for climate justice issues. Consider who is not there at COP26 – who has been excluded, priced out, or otherwise blocked from taking part in proceedings and getting their voice heard?

3. New emissions trading rules. The infamous Article 6 is a particularly impenetrable clause within the Paris Agreement, which relates to the way that emissions trading schemes and carbon markets work. Exact rules for the implementation of Article 6 are currently missing from the current “Paris Rulebook” – the colloquial name for the sum of all the frameworks which govern the implementation of the provisions from Paris. The outcomes (if any) from further negotiations as to the rules relating to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement are likely to have huge implications for carbon markets worldwide – so getting it right is crucial.

Keep an eye out for updates on the rules around Article 6 – have they been agreed, and what does the agreement say? What impacts will the new rules have?

4. Specific guidance for policy implementation. Often, after previous climate agreements have been agreed, it has taken a long time before substantial guidance is produced to help organisations and civil society work toward those policy aims. The lack of frameworks and guidelines can hamper progress for organisations who want to contribute to the big and bold climate pledges, but don’t know how.

Keep an eye out for how the parties commit to their pledges: are they explaining what will need to happen to achieve the goals? Are they offering support to organisations to align with the goals?

How and when will we know if COP26 has been a success?

The COP is going to be a very, very busy period for everybody involved in climate and sustainability – including our team here at Ecologi! On the ground – for negotiators, delegates, activists, observers, and everyone in between – COP26 will be exhausting, overwhelming, exciting, stressful, chaotic, and much more.

There will no doubt be joy, and tears, and all kinds of emotions experienced by all, throughout the proceedings.

When the conference is over, in the immediate term at least, everybody will go home to recover, and start to process whatever has been agreed at the conference. Each Party nation will return home and play up to their domestic audience about the hard-fought political victories they made during COP, and so on.

But the real test of how ‘successful’ the COP has been will come after the dust has started to settle, and we’ve all been able to digest and dissect the agreements made. The noise surrounding COP will continue long after the conference has finished – with commentators discussing the conference and its outcomes, no doubt, for weeks to come.

Longer term, we’ll see! Realistically, there will probably be reasons to believe that COP26 was a failure, and lots of separate reasons to believe it was a great success. Such is the nature of these immensely complex climate conferences.

At Ecologi, our team will be working hard to take all the complicated, jargon-filled chatter that comes out of Glasgow during and after the conference, and help to translate it into understandable and useful information for our community to take away. We’ll help to pull the signal from the noise and help to make COP and its outcomes accessible to all.

We also have our own special campaigns and activations planned during the two weeks – so watch this space to hear more!

Who should I follow for updates during COP?

There are lots of places you can follow updates from COP26. First and foremost – follow our Ecologi social accounts and stay up to date here on our blog, as we’ll be posting updates every day throughout COP.

Some more of our favourite places to follow what’s happening:

• We already mentioned the Climate Watch NDC Tracker earlier in the article – this is a fantastic data breakdown of how each country is doing in its new climate pledges.

You can follow this Twitter list of climate scientists who are active tweeters, compiled by Prof. Katharine Hayhoe. Climate scientists on Twitter are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about their work, so they’ll have some amazing insights into what’s going on at Glasgow.

This article is the second in a short mini-series being published in the run-up to COP26 in Glasgow. The previous article in the series – COP26: What is it and how did it come about? – was published earlier this month – you can view it here.

Our team will be closely following all the developments from Glasgow. We’ll be publishing regular updates from each day of the COP proceedings, helping you to make sense of these complex and politically-charged climate negotiations. You can keep up with all our updates on our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Find out how we offset all the world leaders’ travel to COP26.

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