COP26: the lexicon to understand the jargon around the climate crisis

Published on : 11/05/2021 – 08:05

IPCC

Last August, the 6^e IPCC report on climate change had drawn up an alarming inventory of the climate crisis. His work is very regularly cited at the COP26, which is held until November 12, in Glasgow, Scotland. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is a scientific body created by the United Nations in 1988. It determines the causes and consequences of climate change, establishes possible scenarios and assesses the possibilities to limit the extent of the crisis. It regularly publishes long-awaited reports on climate change that synthesize scientific knowledge on the subject. In other words, the IPCC does not conduct its own studies. The reports it draws up are not binding but serve as a basis for States to establish their climate policies and to debate during major international meetings, like the COPs.

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Composed of scientists (climatologists, economists, biologists…), the IPCC therefore aims to be objective and purely scientific. However, it is made up of representatives from 195 Member States who elect scientists recognized by their peers and who come from different countries. These experts are then responsible for writing reports by calling on other scientific authors.

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)

The NDCs correspond to the commitments made by each of the 196 signatory countries of the Paris Agreement, which aims to contain global warming within a range of between 1.5 ° C and 2 ° C by 2100 compared to pre-industrial levels ( mid-nineteenth^e century). In the majority of cases, these objectives are aimed at 2030 and 2050.

Thus, the Paris Agreement is distinguished by its voluntarist character: it does not require countries to achieve objectives set in high places, by the UN for example. Countries are therefore free to determine their targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. One of the challenges of COP26 is both to check whether States are on the right track to achieve their NDCs. It is also about pushing countries to modify their NDCs to make them more ambitious. Problem: less than a month before COP26, the NDCs communicated by States showed that they were generally on the wrong track. According to a United Nations report, the sum of these CDNs would lead to a 16% increase in global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 compared to 2010. “Such an increase could lead to a temperature rise of around 2.7 ° C of here the end of the century “, warned the UN.

Mitigation

Each of us is faced with climate change mitigation measures. This is the case when you replace your fossil fuel car with an electric car. Any action aimed at combating greenhouse gas emissions is a measure to mitigate climate change. Another such method is “carbon sequestration”. This allows excess carbon dioxide (also called CO2) to be recovered from the atmosphere and stored in nature.

>> Read also: Whitening clouds, capturing CO2 … A climate manipulated to save the planet

One of the most emblematic examples is the planting of trees because they absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas on the planet. However, trees can also release carbon and their capacity to absorb CO2 is not equivalent according to geographic areas. Nor is it a miracle solution to the scale of the climate crisis.

Adaptation

Adaptation to climate change is focused on the future. These are all policies that aim to protect people and nature against potential threats linked to climate change. This includes, for example, the construction of dikes along the coast to protect against rising oceans or the use of renewable energies. Adapting to change is expensive and is crucial for developing countries, which are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. In a report published on Thursday, the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) estimated that these costs would reach between 140 and 300 billion dollars per year by 2030 and between 280 and 500 billion per year by 2050 for developing countries alone. “The estimated costs are five to ten times higher than the flow of international public finance intended for adaptation,” underlines the UNDP.

Carbon neutral

Carbon neutrality corresponds to a balance between carbon emissions and its absorption by carbon sinks (forests, soils or oceans for example). Achieving carbon neutrality means rejecting as much carbon as we absorb, whether by natural (forests or soils) or technological means. The list of countries (India, Saudi Arabia, Australia, China, etc.) which promises to reach it is growing, as is that of large multinationals (Total Energies, Saudi Aramco, Google, Amazon, Facebook etc.).

>> To read also: COP26: the end of coal-fired power stations, a distant horizon despite the emergency

These announcements are intended to be in line with objective number 1 of the Paris Agreement: to achieve carbon neutrality by the second half of the 21st century.^e century. But not all countries have announced the same trajectory: India, one of the biggest polluters on the planet, is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2070 while the European Union is aiming for 2050. NGOs and some Observers fear, moreover, that this concept encourages focusing on climate change mitigation measures, without limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The horizons mentioned are, moreover, distant, giving rise to fear only of the effects of announcement and false promises on the part of States.

Loss and damage

It is an essential principle of climate justice. Also called residual effects, loss and damage is irreversible damage caused by climate change. Among them are, according to the NGO federation Climate action network, “the disappearance of territories due to the rise in sea level”, “the salinization of lands which make them non-cultivable” or even “forced migratory movements”. This notion, little known to the general public, is at the heart of discussions in Glasgow.

Small island states and developing countries are indeed on the front line and need sufficient financial means to protect their territories. Funding is the crux of the matter in this equation, and developing countries, hit hard by a disruption for which they are only marginally responsible, are calling for the decade-old promise of funding to be finally kept. $ 100 billion a year from developed countries.