Leaders must do more to honour climate promises: Alok Sharma

According to the president of the COP26 climate summit, world leaders have not done enough to honour pledges made there. Mr.Alok Sharma said more needs to be done to meet the Glasgow targets, warning that failure would be "a horrific act of self-harm." Six months after the event, he stated that countries must "pick up the pace" in their efforts to achieve carbon-free energy. 

During a tour to the United States, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also delivered a climate change warning. Failure to meet the targets set at COP26, she claimed, would be "catastrophic" for the world.

Mr. Sharma, a cabinet minister in the UK government, was in Glasgow to commemorate six months since the UN summit last year. He acknowledged that, in the midst of the Ukraine conflict and the cost-of-living crisis, climate change had fallen off the front pages. However, he stated that these challenges "should strengthen, not weaken, our resolve to deliver on what the world agreed in Glasgow."

The summit's goal was to reach agreements that would keep global average temperature rises below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

However, scientists warn that fulfilling this goal is only a 6-10% possibility and that even if all promises are fulfilled, the temperature rise will be closer to 2C.