What Is COP26 and What Does COP Stand For

What is COP26 and what does COP stand for?
COP stands for Conference of the Parties, and will be

attended by countries that signed the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) - a
treaty agreed in 1994.
The 2021 meeting will be the 26th meeting, which is why
it's called COP26.
Why do we need COP?
The world is getting warmer because of fossil fuel
emissions caused by humans.
Icecaps are melting and sea levels are rising.
We are seeing more extreme weather events taking place
around the world - including heatwaves, floods and forest
fires, these naturally occurring events are being made
worse because of the effects of climate change.
The past decade was the warmest on record, and
governments around the world agree that urgent action is
needed.
The warming of Earth happens because the atmosphere
traps heat radiating from the world and stops it escaping
into space.
Certain gases in the atmosphere, called greenhouse
gases, block the heat from escaping. One of the biggest
problems is carbon dioxide (CO2).
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Carbon dioxide is released naturally but humans have
increased CO2 in the atmosphere by more than a third by
burning fossil fuels like coal and oil.
People in poorer developing countries tend to pollute less
and are not responsible for most of the emissions in the
past but they experience some of the worst effects of
climate change.
They need money to help reduce their emissions and also
to cope with climate change. For example, it could mean
more solar panels in countries that depend on energy from
coal and flood defence systems.
Did you know?
The world is now about 1.2C warmer than it was in the
19th Century - and the amount of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere has risen by 50%
The last conference, COP25, was held in Madrid, Spain, in
November 2019 with Greta Thunberg giving a big
speech at the event.
The COP meeting in Madrid finished with lots of big issues
unresolved, but an agreement was made about cutting
carbon dioxide.
Each nation agreed to devise a plan to cut their carbon
emissions by the next conference in Glasgow.
What is the Paris Agreement?
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The Paris Agreement is a big international agreement to
tackle climate change, which was agreed by leaders back
in 2015 when 195 countries attended COP21 in Paris -
hence the name.
However, there is still lots of debate about exactly how the
agreed goals should be achieved.
What does the Paris Agreement say?
It says nations must:
• Reduce the amount of harmful greenhouse gasses
produced and increase renewable types of energy like
wind, solar and wave power
• Keep global temperature increase "well below" 2C (3.6F)
and to try to limit it to 1.5C
• Review progress made on the agreement every five
years
• Spend $100 billion dollars a year in climate finance to
help poorer countries by 2020, with a commitment to
further finance in the future.
What can we expect from COP26?
COP26 will be biggest summit the UK has ever hosted. It
is being described as the most significant climate event
since the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Presidents and prime ministers from around the world will
be reporting back on progress since the Paris Agreement
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and, hopefully, there will be some new decisions on how
to cut carbon emissions.
Some commitments made in Glasgow could directly affect
our daily lives.
For example, environmentalists say big changes to how
people live will be needed to hit climate targets, like
people driving electric cars, moving away from gas
heating, eating less red meat and not taking as many
flights in the future.
What is the UK doing about climate change?

The UK government declared 2020 a "Year of Climate
Action".
As well as the targets for changing to electric cars, the
government has pledged to reduce the UK's carbon
emissions to 'net zero' - which means cutting emissions
drastically and absorbing as much carbon as it produces -
by 2050.
This means emissions from areas like transport, farming
and industry will have to be avoided completely or offset
by sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
This isn't technically Prime Minister Boris Johnson's idea -
he inherited the pledge from the former prime minister
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Theresa May, who put the commitment into law in June
2019.
But Mr Johnson has said he wanted fighting climate
change to be one of his government's biggest priorities
and he has made a series of announcements around
renewable energy, national parks and protecting the
environment.
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What is COP26 and what does COP stand for?

COP stands for Conference of the Parties, and will be

What is the UK doing about climate change?

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