The British premier Boris Johnson opened the works of the Cop26 in Glasgow. After the halfway result of the G20 in Rome, we are once again talking about the climate with the expectation of being able to climb one more step, but the premises do not allow us to think of easy optimism. The success of the G20 in Rome was to have brought China back to more accommodating positions and to have obtained the recognition from all that the increase in temperature of 1,5 degrees is the maximum threshold to aim for to avoid environmental disaster. Now the Cop26 will have to try to raise the bar on the subject of the commitments to be made in order to reach the set targets. And it won't be easy.
Opening the proceedings of the conference attended by 120 leaders - with the exception of the presidents of China, Russia and Turkey - Boris Johnson evoked the image of james-bond, "Glasgow's most famous son" in fiction, as an inspiration to save the threatened Earth, this time, from the danger of climate change. However “this is not a film – warned the British prime minister – the threat is real, the clock is running furiously and carbon emissions continue to increase”. Hence the call to act now, "before it is too late".
Johnson admitted that after the Paris Agreement of 2015 the world has done too much "blah blah blah" in the fight against climate change, echoing the accusations made at the UN assembly by Greta Thunberg. Now, you added, good will is needed: the technologies, the ideas, the funding are there. Let this conference be the beginning of a march to 'defuse the bomb, the beginning of the end of climate change. Otherwise future generations will not forgive us”.
Even more alarmed was the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres for whom “it is an illusion to think that the fight against climate change has been won. In Scotland, Guterres recalled that the latest climate report by the IPCC (the UN body responsible for preparing scientific analyzes on climate change) has elaborated an estimate of a very dangerous increase of 2,7 degrees based on emissions of current CO2. So, Guterres said, “stop brutalizing biodiversity. Stop killing us with carbon. Stop treating nature like a bathroom. Just burn, drill and dig deeper. We're digging our own graves."
US President Joe Biden also arrived in Glasgow who wants to relaunch the role of the United States as a point of reference for the fight against climate change, after the interlude of the Trump presidency which led to the country's exit from the Paris agreements. And the Italian premier Mario Draghi also arrived in Scotland, a few hours after the closure of the G20 summit in Rome. “Now, here at COP26 we have to go further, much more than we did at the G20. We must accelerate our efforts to keep the temperature increase below 1,5 degrees. We need to build on the G20 agreement and act faster and more decisively."
