COP26 – Coming together to tackle climate change

COP26 is the world’s most significant summit on climate change and in 2021 it’s being hosted in the UK. Find out more about the conference and why we’re excited to be one of the COP26 Principal Partners.

What is COP26?

COP26 is the next annual UN climate change conference. COP stands for Conference of the Parties, and the summit will be attended by the countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – a treaty that came into force in 1994.

This is the 26th COP summit and will be hosted in partnership between the UK and Italy. The conference will be held in Glasgow from 1-12 November 2021, a year later than planned due to delays caused by the COVID pandemic.

Pushing for more ambitious goals

COP26 will be biggest summit the UK has ever hosted, with around 30,000 attendees expected if it goes ahead as a fully physical event. Many people see it as the most significant climate event since the 2015 Paris Agreement – when all the signatories to the UNFCC agreed to keep temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

COP26 is critical because it’s the first moment when countries must set out more ambitious goals for ending their contribution to climate change under the Paris Agreement.

Why is COP26 important?

Tackling climate change is the biggest challenge facing our generation and the transition to clean energy is critical to help us achieve the goal of reaching net zero by 2050. As we’re responsible for delivering energy to millions of homes and businesses in the UK and the Northeastern US, we’ve got a big part to play in this.

Focus on green

We’re focused on finding ways to deliver cleaner, greener, energy from building interconnectors to allow the UK to share clean energy with our neighbours in Europe, to investing in renewable energy generation in the US.

As a responsible business we’re also committed to caring for the environment. We’ve made our own commitments to achieve net zero by 2050 – and we’re pushing to find even better ways to work.

What is National Grid’s role in COP26?

We’re excited to be a Principal Partner for COP26. We’re getting behind the conference because it’s a unique chance to call for a more ambitious action towards a clean energy future. And it’s an ideal forum to show that achieving net zero is possible with the technologies and opportunities we have today.

Tackling climate change

Alongside our fellow principal partners and many others, we’ll support the UK Government in the delivery of a successful COP26. Over the next year we’ll be working hard to help progress our collective journey to a clean energy future as part of tackling climate change.

Learn more