The 26th United Nations’ Climate Change Conference (COP-26) will take place from October 31 – November 12, 2021.
Office of International Affairs
November 2, 2021
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This week, over 190 countries will convene in Glasgow, Scotland for COP26, the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to mobilize urgent action on climate.
It was at this annual climate summit that in 2015, the Parties (UNFCCC) adopted the historic Paris Agreement, helping to secure greenhouse gas reduction commitments from over 190 countries and putting in place a process to raise national and global ambition every five years. COP26 is an important waypoint as it marks the first of these five-year cycles, at or before which countries are expected to “ratchet up” or increase the ambition of their 2030 targets.
Over 50 countries have come forward with enhanced climate goals, yet studies show that we are still falling short of what is needed to meet the temperature targets under Paris. More parties are now also embracing a companion target of net zero emissions by 2050. This decade will be critical to meeting that goal.
The United States is back in the game, and we are mobilizing our whole government to implement the most ambitious climate agenda in our nation’s history and help others to do the same. Here at home, President Biden has set out ambitious goals to cut our carbon pollution in half by 2030 and get to get to zero by 2050. DOE - the “Solutions Department” - is working to meet those goals by innovating and deploying clean technologies every single day. We are also working hard to knock down remaining technology barriers and unlock our collective clean energy future through programs like Energy Earthshots and Mission Innovation . We are committed to the proposition that climate action is job creation. Every bit of international cooperation DOE pursues on clean energy creates good paying jobs and drives economic prosperity at home and abroad. By the end of this decade, the global market for clean energy will reach at least $23 trillion!
Here in the International Affairs Office, we are leveraging American innovation and leadership to collaborate with our partners in deploying the clean energy solutions we need to seize this once in several generations opportunity. U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm will be at the COP to announce nine new programs that will help the U.S. and our partners begin to transform our energy systems and put us on a path to a net zero world. She will be joined by Deputy Secretary David Turk, Assistant Secretary Andrew Light and other senior officials across DOE to mobilize ambitious action now and jump into 2022 - the Year of Implementation of all of these various commitments.
Strengthened by its 17 national labs and the thousands of scientists and researchers working for the Department, DOE is prepared to be the vanguard of our national and global clean energy agenda, helping countries everywhere move from ambition to action at the COP and beyond.