“With the EU’s plans well underway, and the US renewing its climate commitments, all eyes will be on China, and whether it will up its ambitions for a green transition.
“The EU has been trying to keep political criticism of the regime separate from its trading relationship with China. But this looks increasingly difficult, and these tensions are very likely to spill over into the climate talks.”
Act now or risk losing control
Scientists have highlighted the need to limit global warming to 1.5C in order to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.
A key goal of both the Leaders’ Summit and COP26 will be to unite efforts to keep that 1.5C goal within reach.
Interim Director of the Urban Futures Enabling Capability Platform at RMIT University Professor Lauren Rickards said action needed to happen now or we risked losing the ability to manage climate change.
“Climate change is undermining our ability to manage and mitigate it,” she said.
“There is a real risk that the disasters and chaos we’re seeing – fires, floods, cyclones, even the emergence of coronavirus – will push the ability to manage climate change beyond our reach unless we act quickly.
“Unless we dismantle the incentives and injustices that enable climate change and the destruction of our environment, we will also undercut our capacity to manage climate change.
“More than just minimising harm though, we need to regenerate the many landscapes already scarred and depleted of carbon by urban-driven processes, to restore the ecosystems we rely on and the climate we are vulnerable to.
“We now need to resource such efforts properly, learn from them, and build their insights into our institutions. There is a lot of hard, inspiring work happening on this including the RMIT-led Future of Food project and Climate Change Exchange.
“Society does not have time to tackle these problems one fragmented project at a time.
“We have to build on each other’s work, and together we can develop the capabilities we need faster than climate change erodes them.”
Story: Chanel Koeleman and Amelia Harris
