I have been reading IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2021 (WEO), issued a month earlier in October, specifically because of the COP26 Climate Change
Conference meeting in Glasgow in a few weeks time.
This is the IEA flagship report, a 380 plus page report has for this year’s edition of the WEO been designed, exceptionally, as a guidebook to COP26.
It spells out clearly what is at stake.
This COP – short for the Conference of the Parties, the main decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – is particularly significant. This COP session is being held between 31st October to 12th November 2021 and perhaps is the most pivotal climate meeting to date. Why?
It is the first test of the readiness of countries to submit new and more ambitious commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement. It is also an opportunity – as the WEO-2021 states – to provide an “unmistakable signal” that accelerates the transition to clean energy worldwide.
I wanted to “lift out” of the report a few very short but essential messages provided in this report that give the essential snapshot. Continue reading