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The world will be watching as many of global politics’ biggest names descend on Glasgow for the long-awaited UN climate summit. Among confirmed attendees are US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada. The original summit was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic – and this year’s event is co-hosted with Italy.
Ahead of the opening of the conference on October 31, Andrew Kroglund, veteran climate change campaigner in Norway, has believes “you have to keep a certain optimism, but, of course, you have to be realistic.”
On Monday, Boris Johnson admitted the success of the conference is “touch and go,” suggesting simply ensuring every household ups how much they recycle “isn’t the answer”.
Mr Kroglund, from the Norwegian Grandparents Climate Campaign, detailed how many different interests will be represented at the Glasgow conference, including civil organisations “putting pressure on their own governments” for concrete results from the talks.
He told Express.co.uk: “Especially in the case of the UK – the UK has done a lot of good things in the last 10 years, building down your coal dependency, for example.
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It aims to mitigate the impact of global warming on the developing world, while investing in greener alternatives for future energy sources.
Mr Kroglund described the realisation from developed countries in seeing climate change as a global issue, which must be fought collaboratively.
He explained: “People understand, countries understand, that if you don’t help the Global South with the green shift, they will industrialize the way we did.”
He added that, if this were to happen, “we will have a climate increase of three, four or five degrees – that’s not the way to go.”
“And certain countries will come with new pledges,” Mr Kroglund said.
“It’s still to be seen what will happen with India, China, and a couple of the major transmitters of climate gasses – Russia, for instance.”
Vladimir Putin is one of the notable absences from the conference, as will be China’s Xi Jinping.
Queen Elizabeth II was originally scheduled to make an appearance at COP26, but this was cancelled in an announcement from Buckingham Palace this week.
An added dimension to the “pressure” facing Mr Johnson at the two-week summit will be the idea held by many at the conference that fully industrialised nations – like the UK – have a heavier burden of responsibility in pushing forward green agendas.
Mr Kroglund added: “The industrial countries, the ones which were industrialized first, have a larger responsibility than poorer countries.
“Britain, France, some of the major powers, they were imperial powers also, and in many ways hindered the countries like India, Sri Lanka, parts of Africa in developing as fast as they wanted.”
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