What is COP26?

In November 2021, 196 countries of the world met in Glasgow to negotiate the next stage of an agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees (pre-industrial levels). The 26th 'Conference of the Parties', COP26 brought nations together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement (COP21, 2015) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to limit the levels of global warming and climate change. The importance of COP26 in the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is underlined by the conference having been heralded as the "last best chance" to limit catastrophic global climate change.

UCC is the only Irish University to hold official observer status at COP26 and is the only University in Ireland to have sent a delegation of students and academic researchers to the summit in Glasgow, led by Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir.

Who was in the UCC delegation?

The UCC President’s delegation to COP26 consisted of students, researchers, and academics with expertise in carbon emissions and budgets, transport, societal change, sustainable cities, air and water pollution, energy efficiency, law and governance and plant science.

The delegation included

• Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir (MaREI, ERI, School of Engineering and Architecture),
• Dr Marguerite Nyhan (MaREI, ERI, School of Engineering and Architecture and Visiting Scientist at Harvard University),
• Dr Eoin Lettice (ERI, School of BEES), Dr Kian Mintz-Woo (ERI, Dept of Philosophy),
• postgraduate students
  • Jason McGuire and Vera O’Riordan (both MaREI, ERI, School of Engineering and Architecture),
  • Clara Felberbauer (ERI, CRAC, UN GEMS Water/CDC), and
  • Rhoda Jennings (ERI, School of Law, Centre for Law and the Environment)
• and UCC Students' Union Sustainability Officer Alicia O’Sullivan.

Why was UCC in attendance?

UCC - as the only Irish university with official observer status at the United Nations COP26 conference - sent a delegation of researchers and students to the global summit in Glasgow. The UCC delegation was organised by a working group within the President's office in association with UCC's Environmental Research Institute (ERI).

Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir, who led the delegation, spoke to RTE News about the significance of UCC’s involvement,

In UCC, we are doing research on the required solutions to deliver on this political ambition. As individual countries bring increased ambitions to COP26, I'm hoping to see stronger commitments to action from Governments to match their ambitions and to deliver the necessary solutions, including from Ireland.

Dr Kian Mintz-Woo commented,

The thing that COPs do is draw in expertise, whether scientific, policy, and practical, generating the space for discussion that is hard to replicate in any other context.

The road to COP26

I got a train from Cork to Dublin, one from Dublin to Belfast, a ferry from Belfast to Scotland, a bus to Glasgow, and a train to Edinburgh.

- UCC SU Sustainability Officer Alicia O’Sullivan on her trip to COP26

The UCC President’s delegation made the decision to travel to Glasgow by boat, train, and electric car rather than flying which has a much greater carbon footprint per passenger.

PhD researcher Evan Boyle (MaREI, ERI, Dept of Sociology and Criminology) was part of an electric vehicle road trip to COP26 stopping at a farm in Offaly, at Queens University in Belfast and at a farm in Scotland on the 215km journey before arriving at the conference.

Climate Change and Health

As members of an Environment and Health Subgroup in WHO Healthy Cities, Cork Healthy Cities was invited to participate in a side event at COP26 on the co-benefits of health and climate mitigation. Prof Brian Ó Gallachóir represented Cork Healthy Cities at the event where he spoke about Cork’s experience of democratising the health agenda through the WHO Healthy Cities initiative, in which citizens and communities are consulted and represented and a focus is placed on health equity.

Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir said, 

We now have a new action plan for Cork Healthy Cities from 2020-2030, and it is effectively centred around 6 themes with people being the first. People, places, peace, prosperity, participation and planet.

Model COP26

UCC also hosted a role-playing version of the negotiations in advance of the main conference, to understand the challenges and to see if a global agreement could be reached.

The event was jointly organised by the President’s Working Group on COP26, UCC Green Campus, the ERI, the MaREI Centre for Energy Climate and the Marine, and a number of student societies including the Environmental, Law, International Development, International Relations, Engineers Without Borders, and Co-operative Societies.

Participants adopted negotiating positions for different country groupings, and delegates were tasked with negotiating a global pathway for climate action while other students assumed the role of disruptive environmental and social justice activists. After negotiating their position, delegates returned their pledges for annual reductions of GHGs, rates of afforestation and deforestation, and the proposed timeframes for such actions. Climate modelling software was then used to model the pledges of delegates and determine the global temperature trajectory under that scenario.

Input from UCC President John O’Halloran, Prof Áine Ryall (Centre for Law and the Environment), Dr Fionn Rogan (ERI, MaREI, School of Engineering), and the British Ambassador to Ireland, H.E. Mr Paul Johnston guided the groups in the drafting of their resolution text.

Ultimately the negotiating result from the end of the night, after two rounds of negotiations saw the student pledges limiting warming to 2°C which is compliant with the Paris Agreement. A recent UN report noted that current country pledges only limit warming to 2.7°C so it is worth noting that UCC students managed to secure a better deal!

Sustainable Communities mural

By 2050 nearly 70% of the world’s population will live in cities. In Cork, the population in the metropolitan area is projected to reach 500,000 by 2050, a 60% increase. Commissioned by UCC to coincide with COP26, the Sustainable Communities mural created by Cork-based artist Kevin O’Brien, represents a positive vision of a sustainable city.

The mural, located at the College Road entrance to the campus, depicts Cork against an imagined future version of itself. Signs beside the mural ask common questions around climate change and seek to encourage people to learn more about building sustainable communities at a dedicated website.

It is important that we point to solutions and work with communities in the urgent challenge that faces us all

commented President John O’Halloran

This mural seeks to inspire thinking, encourage conversations and provoke action to create communities that work with our environment in securing a sustainable future.

British Ambassador meets UCC President’s delegation

The British Ambassador to Ireland, H.E. Mr Paul Johnston, met with the UCC President’s delegation upon their return from the United Nations COP26 conference. UCC President Prof John O’Halloran presented the Ambassador with UCC’s COP26 Declaration. This includes UCC’s commitment, while working collectively with peers along both north-south and east-west axes of the islands of Ireland and Britain, to develop knowledge-based solutions and innovations to address the challenges of climate change mitigation and associated environmental degradation, in tandem with research to inform future policies.

"Through my discussions today with the President John O’Halloran, staff and students from the President’s delegation, and through visiting the UCC’s sustainability mural, I can see first-hand the University’s strong climate action agenda and its commitment to tackling the climate crisis. I look forward to exploring further how UCC and the British Embassy can work together beyond COP26 to support the achievement of our climate targets." - British Ambassador, H.E. Mr Paul Johnston