As COP26 arrives at its half way point, Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie looks ahead to the second week while praising both protesters and police.
Assistant Chief Constable Ritchie said yesterday: “For such a highly significant event, to reach the end of the first week with fewer than 50 arrests being made is testament to the fact the relationship between protesters and the police has been largely non-contentious.
“Despite today being a rest day at the conference, Police Scotland has, once again, engaged positively with protest organisers and attendees at a number of events across Glasgow, with minimum disruption to the wider community.
“As you’ll no doubt know, Police Scotland has spent more than 18 months preparing for COP26, and a great deal of effort has gone into ensuring our policing plan is robust but reactive, but also welcoming while balancing the right to protest with the rights of our communities.
“All of our work is underpinned by human rights and a great deal of effort has been taken to ensure our response to COP26-related incidents and events is necessary and proportionate, and that our ethos and values of integrity, fairness and respect is shared by both our own officers and our mutual aid colleagues who have travelled to Scotland from across the UK to support us.
“This event has already provided us with some unique challenges, but our officers and staff have risen to face them, and the broadly good nature of the members of the public we are interacting with has made this a widely positive experience.
“I very much hope this atmosphere continues into the second week ahead of COP26 coming to its conclusion next weekend.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urging countries to keep up the momentum on the fight against climate change in the week ahead at the COP26 summit.
The first week of COP26 saw around 120 leaders gather for the World Leaders Summit as well as negotiators, officials and ministers come together to make progress on the shared goal of limiting global temperatures to 1.5 degrees.
Progress has been made so far includes:
New commitments to net zero by middle of the century means 90% of the world economy is covered, triple the figure when the UK took on the COP Presidency.
More than 120 countries, covering 88% of the world’s forests, have agreed to end and reverse deforestation. Countries representing more than 70% of the world’s economy are committed to delivering clean and affordable technology everywhere by 2030 in the most polluting sectors.
Over 100 countries have agreed to cut their emissions of methane by 30% by 2030.
New commitments to increase finance to support developing countries to deal with the impacts of climate change and implement ambitious emissions-reductions plans.
More than 20 countries have made commitments for the first time to phase out coal power, including five of the world’s top 20 coal power-using countries, and at least 25 countries and public finance institutions commit to ending international public support for the unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of 2022.
45 nations have pledged urgent action and investment to protect nature and shift to more sustainable ways of farming, as well as over 100 countries now signed up to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030.
The views of over 40,000 young climate leaders have been presented to ministers, negotiators and officials.
Marking the halfway point in the summit, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “There is one week left for COP26 to deliver for the world, and we must all pull together and drive for the line.
“We have seen nations bring ambition and action to help limit rising temperatures, with new pledges to cut carbon and methane emissions, end deforestation, phase out coal and provide more finance to countries most vulnerable to climate change.
“But we cannot underestimate the task at hand to keep 1.5C alive. Countries must come back to the table this week ready to make the bold compromises and ambitious commitments needed.”
Attention turns to negotiations this coming week. The UK Government says these negotiations are incredibly complicated, and notoriously hard. Teams from the UK and 195 other countries plus the EU will work to reach collective agreement on more than 200 pages of text.
They will be negotiating the issues left open by the Paris Agreement in 2015, like the process for tracking how all countries are keeping their climate commitments and how we create a fairer global system so no nation is disadvantaged by being more ambitious on cutting emissions.
Everyone has to agree, or nothing is agreed. But the progress in the first week of COP has put us in a strong position, the UK government believes.
The UK’s COP26 Presidency programme continues this coming week, with the spotlight put on transport, adaptation, gender, science, and cities and regions.
The UK has been leading the way and setting a high bar for other countries to follow – including being the first major economy to commit in law to net zero, setting one of the most ambitious targets to cut emissions by 68% by 2030, phasing out coal power by 2024, ending the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, halting deforestation by 2030, and providing £11.6bn in finance – with an extra £1bn if the economy grows as forecast – to countries on the frontline of climate change.
FIRST MINISTER: ‘STILL A LONG WAY TO GO’
Those least responsible but most affected by climate change must be heard at COP26, the First Minister has said as the second week of negotiations gets underway.Nicola Sturgeon said governments must use this week to deliver on more and fairer financial support for Global South countries.
The First Minister will meet with an interfaith group of representatives today as part of a series of meetings with Global South leaders this week.
They are expected to discuss the important role that faith and belief communities play in fostering community cohesion and how this can contribute to tackling climate change – as well as sharing their views on the current negotiations.
Following that, the First Minister will take part in a presentation with representatives from Malawi and Tanzania as part of the Glasgow Climate Dialogues, a series of talks co-hosted by the Scottish Government and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland that set out climate priorities from the Global South for COP26.
Later this week, the First Minister is expected to meet with delegates from island states and regions to discuss the particular challenges experienced by those communities and how countries in the Global North can show solidarity with them.
The First Minister said: “Some progress was made last week with commitments on forestry, methane, coal, and pledges that, if delivered, could reduce the gap between the 1.5 degree target that science says we must hit, and the 2.7 degree trajectory we are currently on, but there is still a long way to go to deliver a fair and just outcome for all countries at COP 26.
“The next five days are critical to countries in the south who need fair financial support now to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of the climate emergency and who need to see clear steps taken to keep the target of capping temperature increases at 1.5 degrees alive.
“On the day where adaptation, loss and damage as a result of climate change are at the heart of COP, I am determined to do what I can to ensure leaders and negotiators hear the voices of those most impacted by the climate emergency.
“It is why we have committed to doubling our world-first Climate Justice Fund to £24m, and announced a £1m partnership to help some of the world’s most vulnerable communities tackle structural inequalities and recover from climate induced loss and damage.
“Over the next five days the world will be watching to see if the sense of optimism that has built up through last week can be turned into real action by countries around the world to tackle the climate crisis.”
