Reaching climate deal will be tough, says COP26 chief

LONDON: Securing a global climate deal in Glasgow will be ‘‘really tough,” warned Britain’s Alok Sharma, president of this year’s United Nations COP26 conference. He said sealing any agreement to reduce emissions with be harder “on lots of levels” than signing the Paris Agreement of 2015. Countries are under pressure to increase their greenhouse gas emission cuts as the world is far off track to meet globally agreed targets to limit temperature rises and curb dangerous warming.

The COP26 summit, which starts in Glasgow, Scotland on October 31, is the effective deadline for countries to bring forward more ambitious national climate plans in a five-year process under the Paris climate treaty.

Sharma told The Guardian newspaper in an interview: “What we’re trying to do here in Glasgow is actually really tough. It was brilliant, what they did in Paris, it was a framework agreement, (but) a lot of the detailed rules were left for the future.”

“This is definitely harder than Paris on lots of levels” but added: “What we have going for us is that there is an understanding that we need to deal with this (climate crisis).” — dpa