No heroes at COP

If COP26 fails, it will be because of misplaced targets from the West and China, and a lack of ambition and imagination from India

We should perhaps not hold out too much hope from this year’s climate change conference — the 26th Conference of the Parties, or COP26, to be held at Glasgow. A few months ago, one could reasonably expect that there would in fact be a significant increase in the global ambition to combat climate change and reduce carbon emissions as a result of this conference. Yet a combination of factors has unfortunately caused this optimism to appear misplaced.

Multiple nations — “parties”, as they are called in climate change negotiations — are responsible for this reduction in expectations.

Consider, for one,