Cop26: Voters want international climate agreements to be made legally binding, poll finds

A majority of voters want agreements on climate change to be made legally enforceable, with Britain given a “a unique opportunity” to push for the change when it hosts Cop26 later this year.

The government this week indicated it would go ahead with the key UN climate summit, which is due to be held in Glasgow in November after Covid-19 pushed its back by a year.

Three in five voters (58 per cent) say the resulting agreement from the summit should be made legally enforceable – unlike the bulk of the previous Paris Agreement.

The research, carried out by Opinium for the campaign group Compassion in Politics, found just 11 per cent of voters opposed the idea – with cross party support from 47 per cent of Conservatives, 73 per cent of Labour voters, and 68 per cent of Liberal Democrats.

More than 200 world leaders are set to attend Cop26 and and each country has already pledged to turn up at the conference with a plan to reduce their emissions.

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But key parts of previous agreements, such as the one struck in Paris in 2015, are not legally enforceable – and campaigners say that needs to change if the world is to resolve the climate emergency.

Labour MP Debbie Abrahams said such international agreements needed to become domestically enforceable or they would not be “worth the paper they are written on”.

She argued that the Covid-19 pandemic had “shown us that, when push comes to shove, governments can reorganise their economies on a massive scale, social norms can change in an instant, and priorities can be completely upended”.

“We cannot expect other nations to comply with their commitments if we fail to uphold our own,” she added. “We must make Cop26 the conference when we introduce real binding targets for emissions reduction and turn the corner in this long fight to create a sustainable, secure, and prosperous economy that protects people and planet.”

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, said of the findings: “This is yet more evidence of the strong support for ambitious policies to deal with the climate emergency.

“When the government continues to drag its feet on climate action, it’s not only failing to face up to the biggest challenge of our time, it is also misreading the public mood. People are fed up with the government’s claims of climate leadership which don’t match the reality of what is actually happening. They know what needs to be done. It’s time ministers caught up.”

Lord Bird, founder of The Big Issue and co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Future Generations, said the UK's presidency of Cop26 was “a clear opportunity for the UK to position itself as a global leader in tackling the climate crisis”.

“We know that climate change and environmental degradation are predictable and incrementally destructive; but, consecutive governments have failed to do anything meaningful about them because their worst impacts stretch beyond five-year election cycles,” he said, calling for a Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill to “rewire our approach to how we plan for long-term crises.

Certain limited provisions in the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are legally binding, such as on reporting emissions, but most of the targets are not.

Article 15 of the deal struck in the French capital also created a committee to facilitate implementation and promote compliance – though its enforcement powers are limited.

Jennifer Nadel, co-director of the campaign group Compassion in Politics, which commissioned the polling, said: “Britain has a unique opportunity this November to bring much-needed leadership to the global efforts to prevent climate breakdown.

“Every nation is now engaged in the process of restructuring their economies in the aftermath of Covid – if ever there was a time to put sustainability and climate security at the heart of those economies then this is it.

“I hope the government will loudly and proudly call for more ambitious and legally enforceable emissions reduction targets, coordinated investment in renewable energy development, and international collaboration for a new carbon tax.”

Responding to the calls and polling, a UK government spokesperson said: “The climate crisis is one we all share, which is why we expect all countries to honour international agreements designed to tackle it.

“The UK is leading by example in delivering action on three key pillars of the Paris Agreement, having committed to cut our emissions by at least 68 per cent by 2030, committed £11.6bn in international climate finance, and published a clear adaptation communication.

“Through our Cop26 presidency, we are pushing others to do the same in our conversations with leaders around the world, by encouraging them to come forward with strong and ambitious commitments/nationally determined contributions (NCDs).”