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Kenya will, in under two weeks’ time, join the resr of the world at a crucial annual meeting to address one of the defining challenges of our age – climate change.

The world must shift gear and race faster at this meeting to secure the futures of local and global economies and societies.

Political will is a must and leaders cannot put off this alarming issue any longer.

The COP26 meeting in Glasgow, UK, from October 31 to November 12, could lead to major changes in our everyday lives.

That is why it is important to simplify the jargon to understand why it is so critical to humanity. 

COP stands for Conference of the Parties. Established by the UN, COP1 took place in 1995 and the Glasgow conference will be the 26.

Up to 25,000 people are expected at the summit, including world leaders, negotiators and journalists.

Top of the agenda is global warming. The world is warming because of fossil fuel emissions caused by humans which have intensified extreme weather events linked to climate change, including heatwaves, drought, floods, storms and forest fires.

The past 20 years were the warmest on record and governments agree urgent collective action is needed.

At COP26, 200 countries are being asked to submit plans to cut emissions by 2030.

Plans to cut emissions are called nationally-determined contributions (NDCs), which are at the heart of the Paris Agreement, an international treaty signed by almost all world’s nations at COP21 in Paris in 2015.

The agreement aims to keep the rise in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels (1.5°C).

It also seeks to strengthen ability to adapt to climate change and build resilience.

Crucially for developing countries such as Kenya, the treaty seeks to align all finance flows with a path way to low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

Each country is required to outline and communicate their post-2020 climate actions through their NDCs.

Failure to achieve the goals could precede a climate catastrophe, the reason COP26 is in the eye of the storm expected to address poverty and the triple environmental threat of biodiversity loss, climate disruption and escalating pollution facing humanity today. 

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres’ issued a warning of apocalyptic proportions, “a code red for humanity”, after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report with a dire assessment in August. 

The Earth is ravaged to a “point of no return” with forests cut down, lakes, rivers and oceans polluted, and grasslands ploughed “into oblivion”.

The fossil fuel-driven climate emergency has severely hit every corner of the planet.

Unless the global carbon emissions are slashed by half by 2030, the climate impacts being experienced now will be magnified on a disastrous scale.

Failure to deliver ambitious outcomes at COP26 will condemn the most vulnerable nations to the costliest, most dangerous future.

Kenya is among the countries most vulnerable to global warming, yet they are low emitters but face the challenge of access to climate finance to enact ambitious and resilient climate action. 

High emitters in the industrialised developed world must pledge new climate finance with a concrete plan to deliver a minimum of $500 billion to developing nations by 2024. 

COP26 must also acknowledge economies need trillions, not billions, of dollars when the new climate finance goal established under the Paris Agreement begins in 2025. — [email protected]