By Jona Cordonier Gehring (Winchester College) and Nico Cordonier Gehring (King’s College School)

TheCOP26 UN Climate Change Conferencewhich washosted by the UK in partnership with Italy, took place from 31 October to 12 November 2021 in Glasgow. This is the 26th Conference of the Partiesto theUN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),where ‘Parties’ means thecountries that haveagreed to the UNFCCC, nearly all of which have also ratified the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. For nearly thirty years,theUNhas been bringing togetherrepresentatives fromalmost every country on earth– and many other organisations too -for these global climate summits in order to coordinate their efforts to take action on climate change, implementing the commitments and obligations that they have agreed to respect.In this time, the COPs ofthe UNFCCCdeveloped from a small, specialist eventwith a few diplomats and scientists from different countries, to a meetingofhighestpriority and global importancewith many heads of state, serious delegations…