COP26, the UN climate change council of leaders, due to take place in November this year in Glasgow, has been postponed until 2021. The postponement has taken place in order to allow the world's governments to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
There were a number of parties who urged the government to go ahead with the conference, fearing that its postponement could be symbolic of a lack of commitment to the decarbonisation of the global economy. Such decarbonisation is required in order to meet the Paris Climate Accord temperature rise limits. The UK has been at the forefront of those taking action, pledging to be carbon neutral by 2050. In Paris, countries also pledged to keep the temperature rise within 1.5 degrees of pre-industrial levels and provided assurances as to national level reductions for 2030. These assurances would be revisited and reviewed for the first time since the Paris accords, making COP26 doubly important. All of this has now been put on hold.
COVID-19 has become the most pressing problem with which governments worldwide are dealing, the pressure to switch to a low carbon economy is still present. A number of stakeholders felt that the delay was inevitable but are hoping that governments and businesses will use this time to consider how they might make changes to become more environmentally friendly, and more likely to hit the necessary targets.
Elements of the UK Real Estate industry are actively taking steps to meet their obligations: whether by including circular economy principles in development and construction, or ensuring compliance with government imposed minimum energy efficiency standards . Some landlords now require all their commercial leases to be "green" and many developers are aiming for their new building to be rated BREEAM good or outstanding to ensure they conform to future legislation. These are all important steps towards decarbonisation.
Even in the midst of the coronavirus crisis there are many ways for the property industry to fight climate change and future proof themselves.
Moving the 26th conference of the parties to an as yet unspecified new date next year gives countries time to work out their responses to the Covid-19 emergency, which experts hope will include commitments on shifting to a low-carbon economy rather than propping up the fossil fuel industry.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/02/we-must-use-this-time-well-climate-experts-hopeful-after-cop26-delay-coronavirus
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