COP26: NGOs ask for postponement; UN and UK, no changes planned for now

NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 7 – The United Nations today sent back, at least “for now”, the request of a coalition of 1,500 environmental groups that called for a postponement of the COP26 climate conference. “No changes are planned for now, but we understand the concern,” said the UN spokesman Farhan Haq, reiterating that “the global scientific community has made it clear that climate change is now a global emergency.”

U.S. President Joe Biden, while visiting New York after the devastation of Hurricane Ida, reiterated his support to the Conference: “The United States and the rest of the world need to take action on climate change. I’m going to Glasgow,” Biden said, speaking during a visit to the city’s neighborhood of Queens, the most hardly hit by the hurricane.

International NGOs had called for the postponement of the Glasgow conference, co-organized by Britain and Italy, mainly because of low Covid-19 vaccination coverage in poor countries. The conference is scheduled in November: “With only two months to go, it is clear that a safe, fair and inclusive global climate conference is impossible,” argued the global Climate Action Network (CAN), whose members include Greenpeace, WWF, Action Aid, Oxfam and Amnesty International, pointing out to “the failure of access to vaccines in poor countries, the rising costs of travel and housing, and uncertainties about the evolution of the pandemic”.

Coming at the end of a summer that has seen dramatic extreme weather events such as heat waves, drought-induced famine, raging wildfires and drenching hurricanes, the two-week conference, which is scheduled to begin on Nov. 1, has come to be seen as humanity’s last best chance to strike a global agreement to try to avert catastrophic climate change.

The organization of the Cop26, already rescheduled last year because of Covid, is going on, said British minister Alok Sharma, president-designate of the meeting, in response to the to the appeal. Sharma underlined the green light confirmed in August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assuring that every effort to ensure health security and the broader global participation, as well as London’s commitment to fund the costs of the quarantine for all delegates required to observe it. The UK is currently sending doses of the Astra Zeneca vaccine to delegates who have already registered to take part in the conference. (@OnuItalia)