United Nations Climate Change Conference 2021 popularly known as COP26 as it brings together the Conference of the Parties for a number of treaties after COP21 took place in Paris in 2015. A conference of the Parties is the supreme governing body of an international convention, composed of representatives of all Parties and accredited observers of each treaty. COP26 organised by UN under Presidency of United Kingdom at Glasgow starting with the World Leaders Summit on 1 and 2 November followed by 200 events hosted at the Glasgow Science Centre from 3rd to 12th November on a different theme, beginning with finance, energy and then youth and public empowerment.
The meeting comprises the twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 26), the sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 16), and the third session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 3).
COP26 was attended by representatives and Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - established in the early 90s to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system" - the Kyoto Protocol that commits state parties to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and the Paris Agreement. Under the Paris Agreement, parties are required to attend such conferences at least once every five years, under a process colloquially known as the 'ratchet mechanism', designed to “ratchet up ambition to mitigate climate change”. The Parties of COP26 are expected to commit to enhanced ambition since COP21, which was actually six years ago, due to the postponement of the COP26 event last summer due to the Covid-19 pandemic.