COP 26 GLASGOW (31 OCTOBER TO 12 NOVEMBER 2021)

Presidency

Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP, Secretary of State of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will be the COP26 President and will preside over the COP26 negotiations.

There are 197 ‘Parties’ to the UNFCCC, that is member stated of the UN plus the ‘supranational’ European Union. All members of the EU act as one delegation in the negotiation space. COP26 will be the first time the UK will act at the UNFCCC as a nation state and not as part of the EU delegation. It is the Parties who negotiate and make the decisions and agreements that fail under the UNFCCC. Often Parties act in ‘blocks’ or groupings to negotiate jointly, these include

• G77 plus China’ is a grouping of developed and middle income countries
• Africa Group
• Least Developed Countries (LDCs)
• Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF)
• ‘Umbrella’ Group is a loose coalition of non-EU developed countries which includes Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the Russian Federation and the US.
• Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)
• AILAC Independent Alliance of Latin America and the Caribbean
• BASIC- Brazil, South Africa, India and China (middle income countries)
• Arab Goup

However, there are also groupings of countries who form progressive alliances across these groups to ensure there is momentum towards achieving ambitious goals, such as the High Ambition Coalition, or the Climate Ambition Alliance.

Ad hoc alliances also occasionally emerge between parties with a joint agenda, for example on human rights or gender issues. Sometimes this results in the joining of unlikely countries working together to ensure certain decisions or outcomes.

Observers

Observers have no formal part in the negotiations but do occasionally make interventions to the negotiating process. However, the presence of observers maintains a level of transparency to the negotiations and provides a wider stakeholder review of the progress of the negotiations. The observer groups are categorized by the UN as follows:

The United Nations System and its Specialized Agencies, such as the UN Development Programme (UNDP), World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

Intergovernmental organizations (IGOS), such as the OECD, OPEC or the International Energy Agency (IEA)

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which are made up of UN ‘Major Groups’

• ENGOS (environmental NGOs)
• BINGOs (business and industry)
• RINGOS (research community)
• YOUNGOs (youth)
• TUNGOs (trade unions)
• Indigenous peoples
• Local Authorities
• Women
• Farmers

Faith interventions

• The Holy See (central governing body of the Catholic Church)
• Islamic leaders

Since 2016 the UNFCCC secretariat also recognizes the following groups as informal NGO groups:

• Faith Based Organizations (FBOs);
• Education and Capacity Building and Outreach NGOs (ECONGOs);
• Parliamentarians

Press

Registered press and media outlets also have representatives inside the Conference Hall, with a dedicated press office and press conference rooms for press briefings