Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow postponed until 2021

The UN climate talks due to be held in Glasgow later this year have been postponed as governments around the world struggle to halt the spread of coronavirus.

Mark Carney, the ex-Bank of England
governor and now Cop26 finance adviser
to the prime minister, launches the
 private finance agenda for the talks in London.

The most important climate negotiations since the Paris agreement in 2015 were scheduled to take place this November to put countries back on track to avoid climate breakdown. They will now be pushed back to 2021.

A statement from the UN on Wednesday night confirmed that the meeting of over 26,000 attendees would be delayed until next year. It said new dates for the conference would be decided in due course.

The UK energy minister and president of the Cop26 conference, Alok Sharma, held crunch talks with the UN and several other countries on Wednesday evening to confirm the timing of the summit. “The world is currently facing an unprecedented global challenge and countries are rightly focusing their efforts on saving lives and fighting Covid-19. That is why we have decided to reschedule Cop26,” he said.

Read the story from The Guardian by Jillian Ambrose and Fiona Harvey - “Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow postponed until 2021.”

Climate change 'will push European cities towards breaking point’

Major British towns and cities, including Glasgow, Wrexham, Aberdeen and Chester, could be much more severely affected by climate change than previously thought, according to new research.

 A rescue boat in a flooded street of Nemours,
 near Paris, France, after downpours in June 2016.

The study, by Newcastle University, analysed changes in flooding, droughts and heatwaves for every European city using all climate models.

Looking at the impact by the year 2050-2100, the team produced results for three possible outcomes – low, medium and high-impact scenarios.

But even the most optimistic case showed 85% of UK cities with a river, including London, would face increased flooding.

In the high-impact scenario, some cities and towns in the UK and Ireland could see the amount of water per flood as much as double. The worst affected is Cork, which could see 115% more water per flooding, while Wrexham, Carlisle, Glasgow, and Chester could all see increases of more than 75%.

Read Tom White’s story on The Guardian - “Climate change 'will push European cities towards breaking point’.”