'Last, best hope to keep 1.5C in reach,' says COP26 summit chief Alok Sharma

As the president of the COP26 climate summit on Sunday launched the summit, he called on countries to work together to avoid the most terrible effects of global warming.
According to Alok Sharma, the Glasgow meeting, which continues through November 12, will be the "final, best chance to maintain 1.5C in reach," according to the historic Paris agreement's temperature goal. Climate change's effects, according to Sharma, are already being felt throughout the world in the form of "floods, cyclones, wildfires, and record temperatures."

"We know that our common world is changing for the worse," he remarked at the opening ceremony, adding that climate change had not been slowed by the Covid-19 epidemic, which prompted the summit to be postponed by a year. "We can save our wonderful planet if we act now and act together," he stated.

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Only radical action in the next 10 years, according to experts, can help avert far more disastrous consequences. COP26 takes its fundamental objective from the historic 2015 Paris Agreement, in which governments agreed to limit global warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and 1.5 degrees Celsius if possible.

However, many key aspects still to be worked out, and carbon reductions remain woefully insufficient to avoid catastrophic global warming. According to a UN analysis released last week, even the most ambitious carbon-cutting promises will result in "catastrophic" warming of 2.7 degrees Celsius. Nations, meanwhile, continue to subsidise fossil fuels, while the Covid-19 epidemic has added to the economic strain. At the opening ceremony in Glasgow, Patricia Espinosa, UN climate director, said that nations must abandon business as usual or realise that "we are investing in our own extinction."

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• COP26
• Alok Sharma
• cliamte summit
• Glasgow