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COP26
This Week in AsiaHealth & Environment

COP26 state of play: with climate conference concluded, where do things stand?

  • Ex-banker Mark Carney has 130 trillion reasons for optimism, but temperature-watchers have 1.5 to 2.4 reasons for pessimism
  • Greta’s a winner, coal’s a loser and ooh, did you try the alphabet soup yet?

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Climate campaigners enact a ‘Squid Game’ themed protest stunt wearing masks of world leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the fringes of the COP26 UN Climate Summit in Glasgow. Photo: AP
Daniel Bardsley
Climate change was described earlier this year by António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, as “the defining issue of our time”, so expectations for COP26 in Glasgow could hardly have been higher.

After the hottest decade in human history, commitments to transform energy generation, protect forests, cut methane emissions, change transport systems and reconfigure the global financial system were seen as crucial.

New that the climate summit has concluded – after going into extra time on Saturday – and the final text agreed, This Week in Asia looks at the progress made, and considers where efforts fell short.
Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor and now the UN special envoy for climate action and finance, attends the opening of Finance Day at the COP26 UN Climate Summit in Glasgow. Photo: AFP
Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor and now the UN special envoy for climate action and finance, attends the opening of Finance Day at the COP26 UN Climate Summit in Glasgow. Photo: AFP



130 trillion reasons for optimism?

Limiting the movement of capital into fossil fuels has been a key aim of COP26, with Mark Carney central to efforts.

This former governor of the Bank of England is now the UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, and co-chairperson of Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ).

Carney announced in Glasgow that the total value of companies committing to net zero was US$130 trillion, a major increase on the US$5 trillion when the UK and Italy took over the presidency of COP.

While more than 450 banks and other financial institutions have signed up, major Chinese, Russian and Indian ones have not, and Chinese banks are the biggest investors in coal.

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