{"id":20079261,"date":"2021-09-29T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?post_type=explainer&p=79261"},"modified":"2021-10-01T16:25:43","modified_gmt":"2021-10-01T10:55:43","slug":"cop26-south-asia-india-whats-at-stake","status":"publish","type":"explainer","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/cop26-south-asia-india-whats-at-stake\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s at stake for India and South Asia at COP26?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Asia is home to nearly a quarter of the world\u2019s population<\/a>, and to some of the countries most vulnerable<\/a> to the impacts of climate change. With just over a month to go until COP26, the next round of global climate talks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), South Asian nations are preparing to make the case for putting their development needs at the centre of their carbon-reduction pathways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 26th Conference of Parties, known as COP26, which will run from 31 October to 12 November in Glasgow, the UK, is considered the most important meeting in global climate diplomacy since 2015, when the Paris Agreement was thrashed out by the 197 members of the UNFCCC. In Paris, countries vowed to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels and with the aspirational target of keeping warming within 1.5C, through a series of individual emission-reduction pledges known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the agenda at COP26<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Five years down the line, countries were scheduled to return to the forum and finalise a rulebook on how to implement the Paris Agreement. Some industrialised countries and civil society groups also hoped that all countries would submit more ambitious NDCs. The UNFCCC secretariat pushed for this by asking all countries to update their NDCs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of this happened in 2020 due to the Covid-19 crisis, which led the UN to postpone the meeting, and negotiations are resuming this year with the same agenda. Nations will need to reach consensus on how to measure and potentially trade their carbon-reduction achievements, a sticking point that prevented them from finalising the rulebook in previous years. They will also need to ratchet up their national pledges for a chance to keep global warming within 1.5C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n