COP26 President Alok Sharma announced at the climate change summit Thursday dozens of countries have made a commitment “to end coal investment” and “to scale up clean power”. The commitment is called the Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement. The video above shows Sharma talking about the commitment.
“It has 77 signatories, including 46 countries such as Poland, Vietnam and Chile; 23 of which are making commitments on ending coal for the first time,” Sharma said at the climate change summit. One of the goals of the statement is “phase out coal in the 2030s in major economies, and in the 2040s elsewhere”.
Other promised actions include:
- Scaling up deployment of clean power generation and energy efficiency measures.
- Ending the issuance of new permits for, the construction of, and direct government support for new unabated coal-fired power generation projects.
- Strengthening domestic and international efforts to provide a robust framework of financial, technical, and social support to affected workers, sectors and communities.
“I do believe we’re getting to a point where we consign coal power to history. A brighter future comes ever closer,” Sharma said. “We must continue to work together over this vital decade to finish that job. The prize is to keep the Paris temperature goal within reach.”
Speaking of that temperature goal, the head of the International Energy Agency addressed it at COP26 Thursday. The video above also shows part of that address. Fatih Birol said if all pledges to tackle climate change were met, a global temperature increase could be limited to 1.8 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. The goal of the Paris Climate Accords is to limit the increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees.
“To keep 1.5 degrees in reach, we need to go much further and we need to go much faster. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook report shows that our currently announced pledges only translate to a 40 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050,” U.K. Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Hands said Thursday. “There is more we can do, and both developed and developing countries need to keep working towards the 2030 and 2040 phase-out dates, respectively.”