What is COP26?

Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano arrives for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 1, 2021. [Reuters]

Every year presidents, heads of state and delegates from all over the world meet for the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Summits better known as COP.

COP, short for Conference of Parties, is a decision-making body where member states get to review the policies in place, the implementation, and other legal instruments that COP adopts.

The summit also allows parties to make decisions necessary that will facilitate the implementation of the convention.

The presidency of COP rotates among the five designated UN regions -- Africa, Central, and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia, Latin America.

This year marks the 26th summit that is being hosted in Glasgow, United Kingdom. Last year, hosts UK secured the agreement from the COP Bureau to postpone and reschedule COP26 to 2021.

For this conference, 200 countries are being asked for their plans to cut emissions by 2030, reports the BBC.

They all agreed in 2015, according to BBC, “to make changes to keep global warming ‘well below’ 2C above pre-industrial levels - and to try aim for 1.5C - so that we avoid a climate catastrophe.”

The conference runs from 31 October 31 to November 12 – 11 days.

The first-ever conference took place in March 1995 in Berlin. Before that, The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty that would help combat human interaction with the environment.

 This treaty was signed by 154 states during the earth summit in 1992.

It was aimed at calling for regular meetings, negotiations, future policy agreements that can allow ecosystems to adapt to climate change, encourage scientific research as well as ensure food production is not threatened yet give room for sustainable development.

COP21 which was held in Paris in 2015, led to the formation of the legally-binding international treaty on climate change. 

196 parties agreed to limit global warming below two degrees Celsius and countries agreed to aim at reaching climate neutral world by mid-century.

This would be possible through an economic and social transformation under a five-year cycle. Every year, countries are required to increase their climate action plans.

The discussions will focus on taking forward climate actions and resolving issues related to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement, and Kyoto Protocol.

This comes at a time when climate change has gone from being a small issue to a global priority.