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UN climate conference: what you need to know and what to expect

2021-10-31T08:44:39.311Z


In Glasgow, representatives from almost 200 countries will debate the climate crisis. How much can that help global climate policy? And what influence does China have on the summit?


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From today on, top diplomats from almost 200 countries will be negotiating the future of the planet at the UN climate conference. The summit, also known as COP26 (26th

C

onference

o

f the

P

arties), will take place in Glasgow, Scotland. On the agenda are aspects of the Paris Climate Agreement, the most important point: how the goal formulated in 2015 can be achieved of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees as possible compared to the pre-industrial era. It is the most important climate protection event of the year.

In the next three episodes of »Climate Report - the SPIEGEL Podcast on the State of the Planet«, we will accompany the two-week summit and talk about the most important debates and decisions.

This first episode deals with the question of why this UN climate conference is so important, and we look to China - the country with the largest CO₂ emissions in the world.

The People's Republic is responsible for around 30 percent of global CO₂ emissions, with countries like the USA and India far behind.

How does this high energy consumption come about?

Georg Fahrion, the Beijing correspondent for SPIEGEL, says in the podcast:

»One can attribute the consumption to the rapid development of China in the last 30 to 40 years.

The industrialized countries of the west have outsourced a considerable part of their own production to China and the CO₂ then rises from factory chimneys in China and no longer from factories in the Ruhr area or the Rust Belt of the USA «.

One problem facing the People's Republic: global warming is already directly noticeable there.

Among other things, smog is becoming a health hazard in the country's larger cities.

“There's a lot of flooding and heavy rain.

There are droughts and desertification.

And there is a problem with air quality, especially in the big cities.

2012 to 2013 was a horror winter here, in which the air quality was so bad that it blew all scales. "

China has now presented its own climate targets.

The People's Republic's CO₂ emissions are expected to have peaked by 2030 and the country wants to be climate neutral by 2060.

However, on one condition:

»China wants to weigh up and find a balance between emissions reductions and economic development goals.

Because it is assumed that good economic development is essential for it to remain politically stable.

And the high growth rates in China are currently based to a very considerable extent on the fact that coal is burned, ”says Fahrion.

In this episode of »Climate Report«, our podcast on the climate crisis, we ask ourselves the following questions: How will China go into negotiations with the other UN states?

What can we expect from the climate summit?

And what debates do you have to watch out for in the coming weeks?

Curious?

Then listen to our »climate report« now:

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2021-10-31

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