COP26 Primer: Glossary of terms, issues ahead of climate summit

From Oct. 31 to Nov. 12, thousands of people will attend the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. CTVNews.ca has created a glossary of terms and issues that will come up during the UN climate talks.

COP26: COP26 stands for Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change. This is a long name for what is basically the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference. The meeting will bring together world leaders, scientists, NGOs and activists to push towards meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. The conference was initially supposed to take place in November 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paris Agreement: The 2015 Paris Agreement is an international treaty that committed 195 signing nations to meeting climate targets. The agreement’s long-term goal is to keep the rise in global temperature to below 2 C above pre-industrial levels (period before the industrial revolution), but preferably to limit the increase to 1.5 C. The agreement also wants signing nations to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Canada is a signatory to the Paris Agreement.

1.5 C: The preferred goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit the average global temperature increase to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels. Maintaining a 1.5 C increase or less means a milder impact on ecosystems and biodiversity, as well as fewer extreme weather events. However, a recent report by the UN climate body found that the world has already warmed by 1.1 C and is quickly approaching the 1.5 C benchmark. 

Greenhouse gas emissions: Greenhouse gas emissions are gases that trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere. They are a main driver of climate change. The most common greenhouse gas emission is carbon dioxide, which is primarily emitted via human activity.