What Exactly is COP26?

United Nations Climate Change Conference is the UN global summit on climate changes and how countries will tackle the issue. COP 26 is a major event that brings leaders from all over the world together to discuss how to speed up global action in order to combat the climate crisis. The COP26 talks will be held in Glasgow as climate change warnings and natural disasters increase.

What is the COP26?

COP is the Conference of the Parties. The 2021 meeting, therefore, will be the 26th COP. This is the fifth COP following COP21, which took place in Paris in 2015. The Paris Climate Agreement was ratified at this COP.

When is the COP26 meeting?

Originally, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference Summit was scheduled to take place in Glasgow (UK) on October 2020. More than 200 world leaders were expected. It has been delayed for an additional year, to November 2021, due to the pandemic of coronavirus. The event will take place on the Scottish Event Campus from 31 October until 12 November 2021.

Who is participating in COP26?

The Conference of the Parties (COP) is a summit of all countries who are parties to the Kyoto Protocol. In the early days of the Conference, 120 heads of states, including US President Joe Biden, and their representatives will gather in order to demonstrate their political commitment towards slowing down climate change. The meeting will bring together governments and negotiators around the globe to discuss ways to keep the temperature below dangerous levels, and to prevent a worsening disaster for the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. Organisers of the global meeting expect 30,000 participants.

The UK will host the largest ever international summit. The summit will bring together leaders of states, climate experts and youth from civil society, trade unionism, religious groups, and indigenous populations to discuss concerted actions to combat climate changes.

Who will represent the largest countries?

US President Joe Biden, along with other world leaders, will be seated at COP26 Glasgow. Boris Johnson, the UK’s Prime Minister, will be attending the summit since the UK is hosting the 26th United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change.

Ursula von der Leyen and Frans Timmermans will represent the EU. In parallel, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Special Envoy Patricia Espinoza will be in attendance. Patricia Espinoza was the Executive Secretary of UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), the 1992 predecessor to the 2015 Paris Agreement. She played a crucial role in the negotiation. Alok Sharma, a government minister, will be named Chief of Police.