We were honoured to welcome David Howlett to our latest online Leeds Craftivists event. David is a Senior Advisor to the UN High Level Climate Action Champions, and his current role focuses on helping people cope with the impacts of climate change, building resilience to it. He has been working in the field of Climate Action since 1980, and very kindly talked us through some important information about COP26…
Why is COP26 important?
In 2015, World Leaders met in Paris for COP21 and were asked to take voluntary action on climate change, with a view to increasing their commitment at COP26.
What will happen in Glasgow?
Many World Leaders are attending for at least the first two days as the UK are hosting a World Leaders Summit during that first two days of the Conference. It has been widely publicised that some Leaders will not be attending (for example from China and Russia), but they will have Ministers in attendance instead.
Leaders will discuss the commitments they’re willing to make, and there will be a lot of negotiation over phrasing and many technical discussions.
As the UK Government is presiding at this Conference, their role is to bring all of the countries with all their different interests, together.
What is David’s role at COP26?
David’s role is to highlight who suffers most from Climate Change – often those countries who have done the least to contribute to it. Climate Change has already been affecting these countries in the form of natural disasters (e.g. Dominica was hit by a cyclone in 2017 which caused Dominica to lose 217% of it’s Gross Domestic Product), and we are starting to notice the affects more in westernised countries in the form of heatwaves, flash floods, etc.
Watch the full video here:
We thank David so much for giving us some of his time during this busy and important week, and also for inspiring us to keep going in the all the big and small efforts we make as Climate Activists!