COP26: No countries have delivered on promise to improve climate plans

Adam Vaughan is a writer.

Sebastian Mernild presented no punches. The University of SouthernDenmark's glaciologist greeted ministers with jagged red lines showing rising global temperatures as they met to discuss progress since the COP26 climate summit. They were reminded that emissions are still growing. He told them that the goal of holding temperature rises to 1.5 degrees C needs to be achieved through rapid, deep and sustained emissions cuts.

They all know what we are facing. It's a question of whether they are acting on that knowledge. It's not clear if countries are delivering on their commitments after a year.

Failure by world leaders to deliver on their pledges would be a "monstrous act of self- harm" according to the COP26 president. He reminded his audience that climate change is a chronic danger and that he could understand why action to cut emissions had been pushed out of the spotlight by the war in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis.

The invasion of Russia has shown that climate security is energy security, and we must break our dependence on fossil fuels.

The Glasgow Climate Pact promised that this year, 196 countries would visit and strengthen their plans to curb emissions. The target of keeping below 1.5°C of warming is out of reach without stronger action plans.

The UK government is looking at ways to strengthen its climate plan, but so far no country has submitted a plan that goes further than what they promised.

Read more: We have 48% chance of breaching 1.5°C target by 2026, says Met Office

It is unlikely that any action will be taken on those plans until closer to the next big climate summit in November, according to those close to the UN climate talks process. It is being held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, raising expectations that the host nation will come up with a new plan. According to climate diplomacy, the best thing that can be hoped for in revised plans is tougher emissions targets for individual sectors, such as forests or cars.

Pete Betts, a former lead climate negotiator for the European Union and the UK, says large, developed economies have already set ambitious targets. The US promised to cut emissions in half. None of the big emerging economies made significant moves.

It was clear in Glasgow that we were unlikely to see these revisions. If they were going to do it, they would have done it in Glasgow. Betts says that it is not going to happen in Sharm El-Sheikh. There is no indication that Egypt is putting pressure on other countries to raise their ambitions.

The likelihood of tougher climate plans is what I see as the biggest issue on the climate front. It is stealing all the political attention away from everything else.

The US special envoy on climate change, John Kerry, said last week that the invasion is not an excuse to build coal plants.

Read more: How the war in Ukraine will change the way the world uses energy

The new German government, formed by a coalition including the country's Green party, is using its presidency of the G20 group of leading world economies to push for continued action on climate change. Ross thinks that Australia and Brazil could potentiallyelect governments that produce bold new plans.

Saleemul Huq at the International Centre for Climate Change says that there has been some progress made on talks promised at COP26 on loss and damage.

The pledges made in Glasgow are worse than before. Nearly 200 countries promised tophasing down coal. China and the US are expected to increase coal production this year. Climate change and the burning of coal has led to a heat wave in India, which has led to relaxed environment rules to ramp up coal mining.

More than 100 countries pledged to halt deforestation by the year 2030 in a series of flashy side deals made at COP26, but there is little progress. Satellite images show that Brazil saw the worst Amazon depredation in two years in April.

COP 27 is six months away, but it hasn't got an official website yet. Jim Skea of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently said that the 1.5C goal will be gone if stronger national climate plans don't materialise by the time thousands of delegates descend on Sharm El-Sheikh. Despite the resort's sunny reputation, that is looking increasingly gloomy.

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