The UN Climate Change Conference COP26 starts in Glasgow, UK this weekend. While it will offer many story leads for journalists increasingly finding themselves writing about the environment, the climate coverage will continue long past the fortnight of events.
COP26 is quite a big deal. It is a five-year follow-up to the landmark Paris Summit in 2015, which gave rise to the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty signed by almost every state, committing them to limit global warming to below 2 – preferably to 1.5 – degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
For that reason, all eyes will be on negotiations between countries as they ramp up their contributions, particularly the strained relationship between the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases: the US and China. That is according to James Fahn, a lecturer at UC-Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and an experienced journalist and author on climate topics.
