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If you ask in Glasgow right now how the U.N. climate summit is going, you could get whiplash listening to the answers.
Negotiators are making progress, but they’re anxious and behind schedule as government ministers arrive. Business and finance leaders are elated about their new pledges to cut their emissions to net-zero by 2050 – and facing accusations of greenwashing. Island nations are increasingly frustrated by unfilled promises of help as the dangers rise.
On the streets, meanwhile, youth activists are angry. “It should be obvious that we cannot solve a crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place,” the young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg declared.
Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a former U.N. senior official, offers the view from inside COP26 today, both the progress and the steep challenges ahead. Coalitions are making promises to reduce methane emissions, end coal use, cut support for fossil fuel projects overseas and stop deforestation, among other steps.
Other scholars are diving deeper into fundamental problems, including the injustices of climate change, what science shows and what’s happening to places like North America’s glaciers as climate change
worsens. Read on for more and visit our page dedicated to COP26 coverage.
And one last note: Our work on these articles, and our ability to bring them at no charge to readers across the United States and world, is supported by our readers. We hope you will consider a donation to support this climate journalism.
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Countries facing existential risks from climate change, like the Maldives, are demanding faster action and financing to help them survive.
UNFCCC
Rachel Kyte, Tufts University
The press releases sound promising, but the negotiations have a long way to go. Here’s what’s ahead at the midpoint of the COP26 climate talks.
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry spoke at the announcement of the Global Methane Pledge.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Jeff Nesbit, Yale University
Of the big pledges so far at the UN climate conference, cutting methane could have the most immediate impact.
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African countries have faced dangerous droughts, storms and heat waves while contributing little to climate change.
Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images
Sonja Klinsky, Arizona State University
Climate justice is about both where emissions come from and who suffers the consequences.
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Benjamin Attia, Colorado School of Mines; Morgan Bazilian, Colorado School of Mines
Major international donors, including the US and UK, are pledging to stop funding fossil fuel projects overseas, but they aren’t making the equivalent cuts at home.
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Doreen Stabinsky, College of the Atlantic; Kate Dooley, The University of Melbourne
Yes, trees and soils can absorb and store carbon, but the carbon doesn’t stay stored forever. That’s one of the problems with how net-zero plans for the climate are being designed.
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Shelley Inglis, University of Dayton
A former UN adviser explains what happens at climate summits like COP26 and why people fear this one won’t meet its goals.
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Kelly Sims Gallagher, Tufts University
President Joe Biden needed a Plan B, one that Congress could approve, to take to the UN climate conference. But his new strategy is unlikely to meet the country’s emissions reduction goals for 2030.
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John Rennie Short, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and that share is growing. Rapid climate change could make many cities unlivable in the coming decades without major investments to adapt.
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Brian Menounos, University of Northern British Columbia
Policy-makers need the courage to commit to meaningful reductions of greenhouse gas emissions if we want to avoid the widespread loss of mountain glaciers.
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Wändi Bruine de Bruin, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
The language around climate change can feel overwhelming. A psychology and public policy expert breaks it down in plain English.
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Betsy Weatherhead, University of Colorado Boulder
Take a closer look at what’s driving climate change and how scientists know CO2 is involved, in a series of charts examining the evidence in different ways.
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