COP26 2021

COP26

You might have heard some talk about COP 26 in recent weeks, and you might be wondering what all the excitement was about. We did some investigation to learn more. We visited https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/science/nature/what-is-cop26-glasgow/ and here's what we found:

What is it and Who will be there?

In November 2021, more than 200 world leaders planned to meet at COP26 to talk about climate change.

‘COP’ stands for ‘conference of parties’. It is a conference - that's another word for a big meeting where lots of different people work together towards the same goal.

And the 26? Well the 26 is because this meeting is the 26th meeting of members of the ‘United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change‘ (UNFCCC). These meetings have been going on almost every year since 1994, when world leaders realised that they needed to work together to help the Earth.

All this is a lot to remember and understand, but the most important thing we need to know is that this meeting will give world leaders the chance to work together to stop climate change and help the Earth!

Sir David Attenborough speaking at COP26. Image Credit: bbc.co.uk

COP26 ran from 1st November until yesterday 12th November. Today lets try to understand what the meeting was all about and then maybe next time we can explore what exactly was decided at the meeting.

The people who go to the meeting will be world leaders - prime ministers and presidents from nearly every country in the world, as well as journalists - these are the people who work for newspapers or the radio and they report what's happening so that the rest of the world get to hear about it. There will also be other people who care alot about, and know a lot about the environment. Naturalists like David Attenborough, Activists like Greta Thunberg, and people who represent organisations like WWF and other environment groups and organisations.

David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg

Photo credit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/57054100

What will happen at COP 26?

World leaders will agree on targets to set for the future, with the aim of protecting the planet. The decisions they make will affect people everywhere, in all parts of the world. They matter A LOT! Most importantly of all they should help us to work together to become greener and live more sustainably.

Five years ago at COP21 in Paris, every member of the UNFCCC signed the Paris Agreement – an international commitment to tackle climate change. At COP26, members will review whether this agreement is working, and highlight any progress.

In the Paris Agreement, countries agreed that they would:

1. Reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and invest in renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power.

2. Prevent global temperatures from warming by more than 2°C, and try to keep the increase as low as 1.5°C.

3. Help less-developed countries become more environmentally friendly, by supporting them financially.

4. Review progress on the Agreement every five years.

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/science/nature/what-is-cop26-glasgow/

The whole world understands better than ever now that we need to work together from this very moment on to make sure that we look after our planet. COP26 is a really really important part in making sure that this happens and that all countries around the world do everything that they can to help.

WWF Share Some More Information and Show Us a Way to TAKE ACTION!

Here's a video from WWF with a really nice activity included that we can do together. The video talks about the important of COP26 and what we can do to add our voices to all the others around the world who REALLY want our governements to take climate change seriously!

Here are two more videos which give us a more detailed look at COP 26

Storytime

As we've said before in our Earth Club, looking after the planet is really all about being kind. Being kind and being prepared to sometimes give some things up, in order to make the world a better place for everyone. It's about thinking about everyone on the earth, about how we can share what we have and not just always take more for ourselves, and to treat animals and plants the way we would like to be treated ourselves - with care.

So, for this topic we chose two stories about kindness.

Be KindA picture book about the power of kindness. When Tanisha spills grape juice all over her new dress, her classmate contemplates how to ma...

Here is Carol McCloud Reading her own lovely book - "Have you filled a bucket today?"

Art Time!

We chose one of our favourite online art teachers activities for today. It's all about making a tiny picture of something beautiful and hopeful, and then cutting it out, writing a motivational quote or a little hopeful message about looking after the earth, and then almost like Secret Earth Care Fairies, leaving our notes tucked in hidden spots for our neighbours or family or friends to find! It can be like our very own COP26 campaign!

Now that COP26 is over we are trying to understand about the promises that were made. Let's try to do everything we can to keep reminding our leaders to keep their promises!

After all, a PROMISE IS A PROMISE!

So What Were The Top Promises Made At COP26?

Cutting Out Coal

More than 40 Countries have promised to phase out the use of Coal between now and 2040. We know that we need renewable energy sources for our future, we can't rely on dirty fossil fuels like Coal, Oil, and Gas - which are really bad for our environment.

2. Move to Zero Emissions Vehicles

30 Countries, 11 Car manufacturers, and some big organisations have promised to make all new cars and vans that are sold be only those that are ZERO Emission Vehicles - This means they aren't pumping yucky fumes out into the air.

3. Give Money to Poorer Nations to Help them Adapt to Climate Change

It is understood that most of the poorer countries in the world are the ones that will suffer most of all from the effects of climate change, and they also have less money to be able to adapt to climate change or fight against it. So some of the wealthier countries have pledged to give more money every year to these countries - they are promising $100 billion each year to do this.

4. End Deforestation by 2030

More than 130 world leaders promised to end and reverse deforestation by 2030! The agreememewnt was signed by countries that cover almost 85% of the world’s forests, including Canada, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and the UK.

Credit: (https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/top-five-climate-commitments-made-at-cop26/)

5. China & The USA make a Pact

China and the USA are known to be the biggests polluters or carbon emitters in the world. They also together produce ALOT of the THINGS that the rest of us buy and use - often unnecessarily. They both signed an agreement that they would spend more time and money on helping to solve the causes of climate change caused by their countries.

6. BIG Firms Pledge to get to Help

Big banks, insurance companies and other big big firms that manage a lot of the money in the world have agreed to do what they can to also help climate change.

7. Methane

More than 100 countries signed a promise to cut global methan emissions by 30% by 2030. Hmmm... what does this actually mean?

8. Raising Voices

The meeting brought together people from all over the world and gave the chance for their stories about climate change to be heard. But many groups of people still feel their voices haven't been heard, especially indigenous people. Indigenous people are those who really come from a particualr place or land and ahve always been there and rootedor tied to that place in their way of living and their cultures and traditions. We hope our leaders will keep listening to the people who are most affected by climate change, because they have such important things to tell us.

Hang on... Methane? Farming? What is this all about?

What is Methane?

Everytime a cow burps or passes gas... some call this a bottom burp some call it a fart, a little puff of methane wafts into the atmosphere! And apparently they burp quite a lot! And if you think about the number of cows on the planet (1.4 billion apparently) and add all those little puffs altogether, well that's a lot of methane, and that is really bad for the earth.

Methane is a greenhouse gas and it's 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the earth.

As we know it's produced by some animals, cows in particular, and also landfil sites. It also escapes into the air when coal, oil or natural gas are taken or extracted from the Earth.

Methane is also called CH4.

Scientists now think that 20% of global warming has happened because of methane.

If it's collected Methane can be used as an energy source for heating our homes or cooking or it can even be used to generate (make) electricity. But if it's just left to escape into atmosphere it adds to the warming of our planet and we know that this is not good.

If we humans keep demanding more and more meat and dairy products, farmers will keep expanding their farms and breeding more cows, all of this will definitely be bad for the environment.

Eating less meat and dairy can actually have a huge positive impact on the environment!

All these COP26 Promises Sound Really Great Right?!

Well, sort of yes, and sort of no...

Whilst all the work done at the conference has meant that the world is a step closer to a reducing climate change and restoring balance to our Earth, most environmentalists, scientists, naturalists and other climate activists, as well as many politicians all over the world are telling us the promises made did not go far enough to do what we really need to do to help our planet.

Why is this? What is stopping these big changes being made?

We spent some time brain storming and here's what we thought:

Martha - With things like giving up dairy or being vegetarian, most people might not want to stop having those things.

Rosaleen - People don't really want to give things up I think. People just want more and more and more, and then the leaders just say we can't do anything because it's not what our people want. So then they don't do what they should do. And can I add to what you said Martha? I think that the leaders and people think that if they have to give up things, the things they normally have, then they will be unhappy and cross - like people might think that changing to electric cars might be bad because they might think that maybe the electric cars would run out of battery or they wouldn't be as good, so they ndon't make the changes they need to.

Nuri - People think that if we do these (better ) things it might not be good for us humans. The only thing that matters to people is money. People are destroying habitats just to get more farmland, they are bullying the cows to make them give birth more than normal and to get fatter and fatter so that we can have more meat and more money. It isn't the cows fault that there are so many of them.

Martha - Yes, it's not the cows' fault.

Although there has been a lot of disappointment that world leaders didn't do enough at the conference, many people still feel that if we can at least make sure that our leaders stick to the promises they made, and then if we can make even more changes in the next few years then we really TRULY can help the Earth!

Now is a great time for us to raise our voices. Remember the video we watched last week? It had some great ideas! We could write about our hopes for our planet earth, or draw pictures of the world we wish for ourselves and our children in the future. Lets draw or write, and send our pictures to our leaders... did you know that we can all send messages to our presidents, prime ministers, even kings or queens get mail and email! If you're not sure how to do this, ask your parents to send it, and if they are really busy, then please send them to us, we can find out how to send them for you!

Then we can ask our friends to do the same... what do you think might happen if we just kept sending picture after picture after picture, or poem after poem after poem... could it help to remind our leaders of what matters most of all?

LET'S TRY! LET'S CREATE!

In our Earth Club meeting we wrote poems and drew pictures about our ideal earth - how we want the earth to look like and be like as grow up, and maybe what we don't want to happen! You can see some of our pictures in our gallery. We are going to send them to our countries leaders.

What Did My Country Do?

One really nice thing about our Earth Club is that we all come from different countries!

Action for this week! Let's talk to our parents and investigate together - WHAT DID MY COUNTRY DO? Lets find out what promises our countries made at COP26 and we will record them here on our website!

Storytime!