UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties

The UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 1 – 12 November 2021. The COP26 summit will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The United Nations Climate Change Conferences are yearly conferences held in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They serve as the formal meeting of the UNFCCC Parties (Conference of the Parties, COP) to assess progress in dealing with climate change, and beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. From 2005 the Conferences have also served as the “Conference of the Parties Serving as the Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol” (CMP); also parties to the Convention that are not parties to the Protocol can participate in Protocol-related meetings as observers. From 2011 the meetings have also been used to negotiate the Paris Agreement as part of the Durban platform activities until its conclusion in 2015, which created a general path towards climate action.

ISWA is heading to Glasgow to represent the waste and resource management sector. In our hands we will take the recently approved ISWA Declaration on Climate Change and the Waste an Resource Management Sector (full text can be found here) and our most recent publication “The Future of the Waste Management Sector [2021-2030]”, with key messages for the decade (download the document here).

ISWA will organise or join the following events:

1. ISWA & Partners Official Side Event: A wasted opportunity – open burning of waste causes a climate and health calamity, to be held on 8 November, from 13h15-14h30, at Multimedia Studio 2.
2. Abt Associates Side Event at the World Health Organization’s pavilion: The case for Mitigating Black Carbon – Climate and Health Co-benefits, to be held on 9 November, from 17h-18h.
3. CCAC Climate & Clean Air Ministerial Meeting, which will bring together CCAC Ministers and Partners, to adopt the CCAC 2030 Strategy stepping up ambition and actions to address climate and clean air issues with a special focus on methane.