More than 120 world leaders arrive in Glasgow, where the United Nations Climate Conference (COP26) opens on Monday, November 1, faced with the dizzying challenges of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions necessary to limit the effects of climate change.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has asked the millions of people who follow her on social media to sign an open letter accusing rulers of rich countries of "betrayal".

“As citizens across the globe, we call on you to respond to the climate emergency. Not next year. Not next month. Now,” she wrote on Twitter.

“As citizens across the planet, we urge you to face up to the climate emergency.

Not next year.

Not next month.

Now ”



Join me and activists all over the world and demand leaders to face the climate crisis at # COP26


So far more than 650k people have signed! Https: //t.co/MJTQHx4FH0

- Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) October 31, 2021

Many of the leaders who attended the Rome summit traveled to Scotland, where they will deliver their inaugural speeches at COP26 on Monday, ahead of two weeks of negotiations which promise to be particularly tense.

"Humanity is long past the time to act on climate change. We must act now," said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the opening of the conference, according to excerpts from the speech that he must pronounce.

"If we don't get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do it tomorrow," he added.

Powers that are missing 

The differences between the world's biggest polluters are illustrated by the absence, in Glasgow, of the leaders of countries which have not yet wished to make firm commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, such as China, Russia or Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was made pale at the last minute.

The disagreements relate as much to the policies to be implemented to reduce the consumption of coal, oil and natural gas as to the means of helping poor countries to adapt to the consequences of climate change, the goal of 100 billion dollars of aid per year reaffirmed to the G20 remaining for the moment virtual.

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A few hours before the inaugural ceremony of COP26, the White House put pressure on China, believing that nothing justifies it shying away from its climate responsibilities.

President Joe Biden had previously castigated Beijing and Moscow's lack of commitment.

"Russia and China have barely demonstrated any commitment to tackling climate change," said the President of the United States at the end of the G20 summit, who himself faces strong resistance to Congress to have its environmental plan adopted.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose country is by far the world's largest emitter, will content himself with a written statement at the opening of COP26, according to the official program.

Substantial efforts required 

Delayed by one year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the COP26 must keep alive the hope of limiting the rise in global temperature to 1.5 ° C compared to the pre-industrial period, beyond which the effects of climate change are expected, according to experts, to be catastrophic.

An objective from which the planet seems far removed today since according to UN experts, on the basis of the current promises of states and assuming that they keep them, the increase will reach 2.7 ° C at the end of the century. .

The stake of the COP26 is therefore to arrive at more robust promises of the States to reduce their CO2 emissions, to release trillions of dollars to finance the climate transition in the developing countries and to finish drawing up the rules for implementing the commitments made during the signing, by nearly 200 countries, of the Paris Agreement in 2015.

After the inaugural speeches, which will take place over two days, the experts will get to the heart of the matter on Wednesday and try to reach an agreement by the closure of COP26 on November 12, or even after.

With Reuters

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