As the world enters the most decisive decade of climate action, the UK is set for the UN Climate Change Conference – known as COP26 – in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, under the co-presidency of the United Kingdom and Italy from October 31 to November 12, 2021.

The summit, poised to be one of the most consequential climate events since the negotiation of the Paris Agreement in 2015, will seek to build a more sustainable, resilient and zero-carbon future, in which non-state actors will play an increasingly vital role.

The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the third meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement. This will also be the first time that parties are expected to commit to enhanced ambition since the 21st conference in 2015.

Parties are required to carry out every five years, as outlined in the Paris Agreement, a process colloquially known as the ‘ratchet mechanism.’

Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio has confirmed that He will be attending the event.

He wrote on Twitter, “To assure a more resilient future, our young people and women deserve urgent and sustained global action to tackle climate change. Over the next two days, I will engage world leaders @COP26, @UNFCCC, @theGCF, @theGEF, @UKinSierraLeone to work towards a greener future.”

 

Originally billed to be held in November 2020, the event was postponed for 12 months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The venue for the conference will be the SEC Centre in Glasgow, Scotland.

Under the Paris Agreement, countries submitted pledges called nationally determined contributions to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. Under the framework of the Paris Agreement, each country is expected to submit enhanced nationally determined contributions every five years, to ratchet up ambition to mitigate climate change.

When the Paris Agreement was signed at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the conference of 2020 was set to be the first iteration of the ratchet mechanism. Even though the 2020 conference was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, dozens of countries still had not updated their pledges by early October 2021.