The Glasgow Climate Pact is an agreement reached at the

2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP26, was the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference, held at the SEC Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, from 31 October to 13 November 2021. The ...

(COP26). The pact is the first climate agreement explicitly planning to reduce unabated coal usage. A pledge to "phase out" coal was changed to "phase down" late in negotiation, for

coal in India Coal in India has been mined since 1774, and India is the second largest producer and consumer of coal after China, mining in FY 2022. Around 30% of coal is imported. Due to high demand and poor average quality, India imports coking coal to mee ...

and

coal in China China is the largest producer and consumer of coal in the world. It is also the largest user of coal-generated electricity, with over a thousand coal-fired power stations. The share of coal in the energy mix declined during the 2010s, falli ...

and other coal reliant countries.

Development

The pact's main elements were: *An agreement to re-visit emission reduction plans in 2022 in order to try to keep the 1.5 °C

Paris Agreement The Paris Agreement (french: Accord de Paris), often referred to as the Paris Accords or the Paris Climate Accords, is an international treaty on climate change. Adopted in 2015, the agreement covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and ...

target achievable *The first ever inclusion of a commitment to limit ("phase down") the use of unabated coal (from this wording it implicitly follows that utilizing coal with "abatement" (net-zero emission), e.g. by neutralizing the resulting carbon dioxide via the CO₂-to-stone process, need not be reduced. However this

carbon capture and storage Carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture and sequestration is the process of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it, and storing it ( carbon sequestration) for centuries or millennia. Usually ...

is too expensive for most coal fired power stations.) *A commitment to

climate finance Climate finance is "finance that aims at reducing emissions, and enhancing sinks of greenhouse gases and aims at reducing vulnerability of, and maintaining and increasing the resilience of, human and ecological systems to negative climate change ...

for

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agree ...

Pledges

The number of countries pledged to reach net-zero emissions passed 140. This target includes 90% of current global

greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and ...

. More than 100 countries, including Brazil, pledged to reverse

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...

by 2030. More than 40 countries pledged to move away from coal. India promised to draw half of its energy requirement from renewable sources by 2030. The governments of 24 developed countries and a group of major car manufacturers including GM, Ford,

Volvo The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributi ...

BYD Auto BYD Auto Co., Ltd. ("Build Your Dreams") is the automotive subsidiary of the publicly-listed Chinese multinational manufacturer BYD Company, headquartered in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China. It was founded in January 2003, following BYD Comp ...

Jaguar Land Rover Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC is the holding company of Jaguar Land Rover Limited (also known as JLR), and is a British multinational automobile manufacturer which produces luxury vehicles and sport utility vehicles. Jaguar Land Rover is a ...

and

Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to as Mercedes and sometimes as Benz, is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a Mercedes-Benz Group subsidiary established in 2019) is headquarter ...

committed to "work towards all sales of new cars and vans being zero emission globally by 2040, and by no later than 2035 in leading markets". Major car manufacturing nations like the US, Germany, China, Japan and South Korea, as well as

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post- ...

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

Peugeot Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis. The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and then ...

Honda is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a product ...

Nissan , trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the Nissan, Infiniti, and Datsun brands ...

and Hyundai, did not pledge.

Reception

U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa stated that she was not happy with the last minute change of language affirmed by members of the Indian and Chinese parties but did say that, "No deal was the worst possible result there. Nobody wins,” stating she was satisfied with the deal overall. “We would have preferred a very clear statement about a phasing out of coal and (the) elimination of fossil fuel subsidies,” Espinosa said, but explained she understands India’s needs.

References

External links

*Th
text of the pact
annotated by the

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

. *Th
official text
(Advance unedited version - English) from the

UNFCCC The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in th ...

. * Climate change treaties Coal November 2021 events in the United Kingdom 2021 in the environment {{UN-stub