COP26
A new found realism?
Source: UN
The role of gas today and gases tomorrow is to be the catalyst for and
PADDY BLEWER,
foundation of a more sustainable
Director of Public Affairs at
energy system
COP26 in Glasgow was the COVID COP and has to be
International Gas Union
• The headline communiqué to conclude COP
seen within that context. COVID has fundamentally
demonstrates the continued vital role of hydrocarbons
changed the way the world works and interacts, perhaps
to the global energy, industrial and economic system.
forever.
For all the hope in advance of the conference, COP
COVID meant that the event itself was curiously
only called for countries to pursue measures including
stilted – limited room for group participation, due to a
“accelerating efforts” to phase down, not out, their
need to maintain COVID controls; an event that felt it was
unabated coal use. Broader “fossil fuels” were attacked
part digital, part in-person, but with no integrated whole.
in a call to remove “inefficient subsidies” but at the
Poorly managed logistics and a lack of digital integration
same time there was no detail as to what this means in
meant that unlike other COP events, it was hard to get a
practice.
feel for a common “theme”. So what were the headlines out of COP that are relevant to readers of Global Voice of Gas?
21
G LO B A L VO I C E O F G A S
• Global Methane Pledge. The US and the EU have announced a global partnership to cut emissions of
DECEMBER 2021
