Not just once a year at COP
The British government, as the host of the COP26 UN climate conference that was originally planned for November 2020, decided to postpone it by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, we are hearing rumours that another postponement may be on the cards!
I am of the view that not only must the summit not be put off further, but also that the original delay, although understandable, was wrong as well. The main reason is that while we postponed the talks by a year, climate change impacts did not take the year off.
Indeed, I would argue that, during 2020, the world crossed the threshold of seeing scientifically attributable impacts of human-induced climate change occurring around the world. These ranged from the huge wildfires in Australia and California, to powerful hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the Pacific, and cyclones in the Indian Ocean.
In my part of the world, we were hit by Super Cyclone Amphan in May 2020, which strengthened so much because the sea surface temperature in the Bay of Bengal was more than 2C above normal. Amphan hit Kolkata in India first, and then Bangladesh, causing a lot of “loss and damage” in both our countries.
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