Commentary Why COP26 summit ended in failure and disappointment

BRISBANE: After two hard-fought weeks of negotiations, the Glasgow climate change summit is, at last, over.

All 197 participating countries adopted the so-called Glasgow Climate Pact, despite an 11th hour intervention by India in which the final agreement was watered down from “phasing out” coal to “phasing down”.

In an emotional final speech, COP26 president Alok Sharma apologised for this last-minute change. His apology goes to the heart of the goals of COP26 in Glasgow: The hope it would deliver outcomes matching the urgent “code red” action needed to achieve the Paris Agreement target.

At the summit’s outset, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged countries to “keep the goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius alive”, to accelerate the decarbonisation of the global economy and to phase out coal.

So, was COP26 a failure? If we evaluate this using the summit's original stated goals, the answer is yes, it fell short.

Two big ticket items weren’t realised: Renewing targets for 2030 that align with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and an agreement on accelerating the phase-out of coal.

But among the failures, there were important decisions and notable bright spots. So let’s take a look at the summit’s defining issues.

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