蜜芽传媒

Lets talk about COP - the Conference of Parties - the United Nations mechanism on climate change which brought you the ambition of Rio, the promises of Paris and now the gathering in Glasgow.

Rio was the world noticing there was a problem with global warming - Paris was the agreement to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius increase - now Glasgow has to make that 1.5 stick.

The problem is that the world promised collectively to aim for 1.5, but separate countries made individual promises that added up to 2.7 degrees Celsius, which would be a disaster, and that's what Glasgow has to fix.

To help us explain the challenges at the conference, we turned to a UN champion of the Earth. Katharine Hayhoe is a professor of atmospheric science and a tireless speaker on the issue in the face of plenty of opposition - she's been called a communist, a lunatic and handmaiden of the Antichrist. Newsday spoke to her from Lubbock, West Texas:

"If we don't fix climate change, it will destroy our economy. There will be no economy. It's not a question of too much money to fix climate change. Its no, how much do you want to spend to save the economy? And again, it's really the case they are looking too short term and that's part of the problem with our political system. Elected leaders are only elected for relatively short terms and the decisions they make today we will not see the impact on global temperatures until more than a decade in the future."

(Activists march through Glasgow to raise awareness of the climate crisis and demand a fair deal at COP26 for the Global South, as Glasgow prepares for the Cop26 summit, 30th October, 2021. Photo credit: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

Show less