Category: Environment

The comments made by Alok Sharma, the COP26 President-Designate, on 9 May 2021.

I am delighted to be visiting the Vatican City to learn about steps Catholics are taking around the world on climate change.

I am encouraged by the Catholic Church’s recognition of how urgently the world needs to act if we are to limit warming to 1.5C and protect our planet and people from the intensifying impacts of climate change.

Faith groups have a vital role to play in raising awareness and ambition around the world. Only through everyone working together can we bring about real change and leave COP26 with a successful outcome.

The comments made by Alok Sharma, the COP26 President-Designate, on 4 May 2021.

The UK and India share a longstanding partnership and I am greatly encouraged by the steps we have taken today to bolster our joint efforts on tackling climate change.

If the world is to become net zero by the middle of the century and keep 1.5 degrees in reach, everyone must raise their ambition within this decade and work together to make real change for a cleaner, greener planet.

I am proud of the close collaboration on this crucial issue which our two countries have forged, especially during this very difficult time for India as it battles with COVID.

The comments made by Alok Sharma, the COP26 President, on 4 May 2021.

Good afternoon. And thank you to everyone for joining this event, and to our German friends for co-hosting it.

It is a real pleasure to help to launch this water sector initiative today.

For too long, adaptation has been the poor cousin of mitigation.

And – I can tell you – adaptation is very much a top priority for the UK’s COP26 Presidency.

That is why the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, launched the Adaption Action Coalition earlier this year, with our friends in Egypt, Bangladesh, Malawi, Netherlands and St Lucia.

And I am very pleased so many members are with us at this event to share their experiences.

The AAC builds on the Call to Action I launched with partners when I was UK Secretary of State for International Development, in 2019.

It’s about converting the political ambition into action.

So it is fantastic to see the AAC going strong, with this first event today. And, of course, its first international collaboration: the water tracker.

We all know that, even if we reached net zero today, the world would still need to deal with significant climate shocks and disruption.

And too often, water is a casualty.

Whether through droughts, floods, or sea level rises, extreme weather events make it harder for communities to access clean water.

This impacts health, it impacts livelihoods, food production and more. And ultimately threatens economic growth.

But the very fact that water is so fundamental to life means responsibility is split between many different areas of individual governments.

Policies can suffer from a lack of integration, and are harder to fund as a result.

The tracker the Adaptation Action Coalition is launching today seeks to tackle those problems.

And look at how water can be integrated across countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions, National Adaptation Plans, and national climate plans, creating detailed, consistent plans to help attract public and private funding, and demonstrating the impact we can have when we work together.

This tracker is supported by the UK, and delivered in partnership with the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation, Sanitation and Water for All, as well as the Global Water Partnership.

I very much look forward to hearing in Glasgow later this year about the progress that has been made.

And I wish you the very best for your discussion today, which is about putting the vital ambitions of the AAC into practice.

And of course helping to create a safer, more resilient world for all of us.

Thank you.

The speech made by Alok Sharma, the COP26 President, on 6 May 2021.

Secretary General, Prime Minister Johnson, Chancellor Merkel, Svenja, Ministers, Friends.

Today, I have the unique honour of being the only COP President-Designate to welcome ministers to the Petersberg Dialogue two years in a row. And it is a particular pleasure for me to be sitting next to my friend Minister Schulze as I do so.

Svenja, let me start by congratulating you for the proposal that you put forward yesterday to make Germany net zero by 2045, coupled with enhanced near-term ambition.

Colleagues will know that at last year’s Dialogue we quite rightly focused on the unfolding impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, and the importance of the green recovery.

This year, with now less than six months to go to Glasgow, we are focusing on the negotiations.

And I am very keen that we use every moment of our time over the next two days to delve into adaptation, into finance, and of course, the outstanding elements of the Paris Rulebook, as Svenja has just said.

And we need to be exploring solutions to issues that require a political resolution.

And we need to provide clear guidance to our negotiators on what is expected from them ahead of Glasgow.

And we need to send a clear signal that the political will is there to reach a successful negotiated outcome at COP26.

Now friends, we are now all too familiar with these video conferences. They can sometimes feel very formulaic. What I sometimes refer to as the ‘doom of Zoom’.

But, I request that we do everything we can to make full use of the opportunity that we have now today and up to Glasgow.

That we move beyond positional statements.

Instead, let’s speak very frankly about what really matters to each of us, to each of our countries. And let’s engage in a genuine conversation about how we, as ministers, can best contribute to resolving these issues.

It is only through flexibility, through leadership that we will find compromise.

And it is through that that we will agree a balanced package that makes the goals of the Paris Agreement a reality.

That is what each of us must bring to this virtual table today. And am really looking forward to the detailed discussions we’re going to have.

But before we begin, I want to give you a quick but important update.

As many of you will know, in March the United Kingdom held a Climate and Development Ministerial meeting. And we agreed at this to set-up a Taskforce on Access to Finance, which is absolutely vital for developing countries around the world.

This will take a new, economy-wide approach to climate finance, aligning support behind developing country priorities.

And I am very pleased to say that we have developed the draft concept note already, which I am going to invite partners to work with us in shaping and take this work forward. And we will make this available shortly on the COP26 website.

For now that is all from me, I very much look forward to hearing from ministers and having an interactive discussion.

Svenja, back to you.