Uganda on spot on COP26 outcomes

Better late than never. Four months after the Climate Change meeting ended in Glasgow UK, Uganda’s leader of the delegation to COP26, Beatrice Anywar has convened a press conference to update Ugandans on the outcomes of the meeting. 

COP26 which is the 26^th of the Conference of Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention to Combat Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place from October 31, 2021, to November 13, 2021.   

The COP26 summit brought parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

“The issue at hand was securing the global net zero by 2050 that was one of the issues at hand,” Anywar told the press at the Media Center in Kampala on March10.  

She added, “We had also to focus on adaptation to protect communities and natural habitats. We went with the aim of mobilising funds and then networking and working together to deliver the conservation measures.” 

The conference also included world leaders’ summit that was led and hosted by the United Kingdom, Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. “I was privileged to represent the President Yoweri Museveni in that world leaders’ summit,” she said.  

She said Museveni’s message was emphasising that what happens to the climate is caused by the unruly greedy people with bad actions which was the summary of his letter. 

The Glasgow conference was also delayed. The meeting was supposed to take place in 2020 but due to the outbreak of Coronavirus also known as COVID-19.  

Key outcomes 

“We had unfinished business from the previous conferences, this was not the first conference, so we had started negotiations much earlier in other conferences and especially the Paris Agreement of 2015 which gave commitments to parties to implement. We had unfinished businesses that we went there to cement like negotiations on how markets would work for emission reductions, negotiation to agree on a common time frame on how nationally determined contributions for emissions can be implemented,” she said. 

She added, “We went there to negotiate design to enhance transparent frame work to track and increase climate ambition. We needed money especially developed countries who are contributing less to the emission but we think we can do a lot to address the issue of climate change that needs to be released.” 

Also the meeting discussed financing. “We talked about 100 US dollar billion to be released to help us (developing countries including Uganda) intervene in the conservation process,” she said, adding that this was of great interest to Ugandans,” she said.  

Referring to the recurrent floods in Kasese as some of the impacts of climate change, Anywar said, that loss and damage was also one of the areas of negotiations at COP26.  

“We have contributed least to climate change but we are facing huge impacts, how do we get the funding to compensate and make good,” she wondered.