COP26 live updates: Methane and deforestation pledges highlight Day 2 of the summit

The Biden medication unveiled a sweeping acceptable of policies Tuesday to chopped emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from lipid and state operations crossed the country. The proposals, announced astatine the U.N. clime acme known arsenic COP26, correspond 1 of the president’s astir consequential efforts truthful acold to combat clime change.

Proposed rules from the Environmental Protection Agency could found standards for aged wells, enforce much predominant and stringent leak monitoring, and necessitate the seizure of earthy state recovered alongside lipid that is often released into the atmosphere. They people the archetypal clip the national authorities has moved to comprehensively tackle the seepage of methane crossed U.S. lipid and state infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration volition finalize a regularisation Tuesday extending national pipeline information standards to much than 400,000 miles of presently unregulated onshore gathering lines.

Day 2 of the COP26 leader’s acme promises a caller question of declarations from elder dignitaries and heads of authorities seeking to stress however earnestly they instrumentality the clime threat.

But to young radical already coping with clime disasters, the proceedings volition beryllium conscionable much “empty speeches,” said 19-year-old Maria Reyes.

The Mexican teen sailed into Glasgow Monday nighttime with 3 chap Fridays for Future activists from immoderate of the world’s hardest-hit countries: Jakapita Faith Kandanga, 24, from Namibia; Ugandan activistic Edwin Namakanga, 27; and Farzana Faruk Jhumu, 22, from Bangladesh.

Greta Thunberg, whose solo clime onslaught extracurricular the Swedish Parliament helped animate the planetary younker movement, was among the assemblage waiting connected the banks of the River Clyde to greet them.

The activists chose to get via a sailboat called the “Rainbow Warrior” to gully attraction to the challenges radical from low-income countries person faced getting to this year’s summit. Several Pacific Island nations, which could beryllium wholly inundated by rising seas, person not sent afloat authorities delegations to the league retired of interest astir covid-19. Many activists and members of civilian nine groups were incapable to get vaccinated successful clip for the meeting. The world’s poorest and astir susceptible radical could not spend to be a league successful a metropolis wherever the terms of immoderate edifice rooms person skyrocketed to much than $1,000 a night.

Yet these are the radical who are losing homes successful flash floods and wildfires, who look starvation arsenic clime alteration shifts upwind patterns and imperils crops, the activists argued. Young radical — not the leaders speaking wrong the league halfway — volition unrecorded to spot the consequences of immoderate decisions are made during the adjacent 2 weeks.

“Our stories person the existent meaning of what the clime situation means,” said Eric Njujuna, a Kenyan 19-year-old. “They substance much than immoderate Boris Johnson oregon whoever is astatine the league mightiness say.”

Many young activists expressed vexation with the semipermanent targets presented by authorities officials. United Nations clime negotiations person been going connected longer than astir of them person been alive, the activists noted. To them, pledges to reaching net-zero by 2050, 2060 oregon 2070 — by which constituent astir governmental leaders volition beryllium agelong gone — conscionable looks similar kicking the tin further down the road.

An open missive from Fridays for Future activists calls for contiguous emissions reductions, an extremity to fossil substance investments and much transparent methods for calculating greenhouse gases. It besides demands that affluent countries travel done connected unmet pledges to supply $100 cardinal successful clime finance to assistance processing nations curb emissions and accommodate to clime impacts.

More than 100 satellite leaders representing implicit 85 percent of the world’s forests volition pledge connected Tuesday to halt deforestation implicit the adjacent decade.

The announcement includes Brazil, location to the Amazon rainforest, arsenic good arsenic Canada, Russia, Norway, Colombia and Indonesia. The United States besides signed onto the agreement, which was backed by $12 cardinal successful nationalist funds and $7.2 cardinal successful backstage money.

The demolition of forests is simply a large origin driving up planetary greenhouse state emissions, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel connected Climate Change, with about 23 percent of full emissions stemming from agriculture, forestry and different onshore uses.

Trees play a captious relation successful absorbing c dioxide arsenic they grow, thereby slowing planetary warming. When they are cut, and are either burned oregon decay, they merchandise this c into the atmosphere.

GLASGOW — President Biden and different satellite leaders connected Monday promised large commitments to dilatory clime change, but heavy uncertainty remained astir whether 2 weeks of planetary talks present tin output breakthroughs important capable to debar a catastrophic emergence successful planetary warming.

Many leaders person billed the United Nations clime negotiations, known arsenic COP26, arsenic 1 of humanity’s past chances to follow the benignant of melodramatic cuts to greenhouse state emissions that scientists accidental are indispensable earlier warming spirals retired of control. If the satellite fails successful that communal goal, they warned, clime alteration volition inflict much suffering and fundamentally reshape the mode humans unrecorded connected the planet.

“Our addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink. We look a stark choice: Either we halt it, oregon it stops us,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told satellite leaders arsenic the acme opened connected Monday. “We are digging our ain graves.”