Hope for a 'eureka' moment on climate change persists as COP26 begins in Scotland

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled Our Changing Planet to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.

As the UN Climate Summit began in Scotland, an event billed as the "last, best hope" to save the planet from catastrophic consequences, there were more than enough reasons to feel as gloomy as the Glasgow weather that welcomed delegates.

Harmful greenhouse gas emissions keep rising in spite of 25 previous UN Summits aimed at holding them at bay.

The Conference of Parties (COP), as it's known, meets every year and is the global decision-making body set up to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted in the early 1990s, and subsequent climate agreements.

The leaders of two of the world's biggest polluters, Russia and China, stayed away from the event, and while Australia's prime minister will be here, environmental critics say the country's stance on abandoning coal production lacks ambition, to put it charitably.

Even the world's richest nations, those in the best position to reposition their economies to a low-emissions future, failed to ante up enough money to cover a $100-billion US fund to help poorer nations make the same transition.

Still, longtime COP watchers and participants told CBC News there may still be room for pleasant surprises and even some "eureka" moments at COP26 as the two-week event plays out and international pressure to show progress takes hold.

"I think the big opportunity we have at this COP26 is in getting a 'eureka' moment around countries coming back with more ambition for the 2020s — right now," said Alex Scott, climate diplomacy leader at E3G Consultancy, an energy think-tank based in London.

"We will definitely see from this COP26 a series of deals on moving faster in key sectors," she said, referencing finance, green energy and the protection of natural spaces in particular. 

"We will see countries coming together in small coalitions around faster action in those sectors."

Scott, who has advised the U.K. government on climate issues and has attended several COP events, says even when a national leader is not present at the event, there can be intense pressure on national delegations to produce deals once negotiations begin.

Canadian climate campaigner Catherine Abreu of Destination Zero, a Canada-based NGO that's pushing to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, agreed.

"We bring all these countries together to declare one to another what their commitments are and then they sit across the table and say is that good enough … and I think those processes are really, really key," she said.

Her group is pushing nations and industry for a faster transition away from fossil fuels.