NEW DELHI: The United Nations climate conference in Glasgow started on October 31 with the heads of over 140 countries scaling up expectations with impressive announcements. But, a fortnight later, 197 countries agreed to a political outcome dubbed the “Glasgow Climate Pact” which would, according to experts, continue to take the world down the over 2 degrees Celsius trajectory and clearly highlights the faultlines in the combative political will to tackle climate change.
In fact, the wording of the final agreement is not much different from decisions in previous conference of parties (COP), although there are some positive takeaways, particularly on coal, fossil fuels and new emission review mechanisms. Negotiations had not assembled in Glasgow to sign a new agreement, but to operationalise the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015. The Glasgow pact, by itself, is just a non-binding political statement.
It shows intent of the world to collectively act on several fronts — reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal and reducing subsidy on fossil fuels; enhance National Determined Contributions (NDCs) before the next climate conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022; a mechanism to review NDCs by 2023; a carbon trading market to be in place by 2023; and $100 billion every year by 2025.
The political decision at Glasgow asks nations to enhance NDCs every five years instead of 10, and double money for climate adaptation by 2025. All countries will have to submit emission inventories to form a baseline for future emission cuts by 2024 when the review mechanism kicks in.

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