A United Nations climate summit was postponed due to the spread of the global pandemic and a precautionary measure to prevent the same. The conference was scheduled for November in Scotland but officially claimed that it would be difficult to hold talks leading up to the event. Hence, the summit called COP26 that was supposed to be attended by 26,000 individuals would be postponed.

The COP26 summit was declared postponed as many countries that committed to the event maintain their lockdown mandates locally. The UN climate talks were supposed to be held in Glasgow, but governments have struggled to contain the pandemic locally that led officials to cancel the summit.

After last year's gathering at Madrid, climate change efforts to regulate the global carbon market remained unresolved. This year, the participating countries were supposed to present their updated and ambitious greenhouse-gas emission goals since the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Considered as the most important summit since the 2015 Paris Agreement, the COP26 summit would be scheduled on a later date in 2021. A statement released by the UN last Wednesday confirmed the postponement and that the rescheduled date would be declared in due time.

The UK energy minister and president of the conference Alok Sharma conducted talks with the UN and several member states last Wednesday evening before deciding to postpone the COP26. He claimed that the world is facing a greater challenge and states are focusing their efforts on saving human lives against the global pandemic. Hence, the participants decided on the rescheduling.

Sharma declared that the conference participants would continue to work with their partners to develop better ambitions for the summit later. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change also agreed to delay talks because of the pandemic disruption and would also impose the same on its key preliminary meeting scheduled for Bonn, Germany. The postponements were due to the extension of a national lockdown in Germany that would last until April 19, 2020.

According to the executive director of Greenpeace UK John Sauven, it was vital for the organization to impose the delay to allow governments to delay their commitments and prioritize establishing timely pandemic measures. He claimed that the decision to delay the summit was inevitable given the health emergency that the world faces today.

He added that the summit may be delayed, but the climate emergency cannot be put on hold indefinitely. He announces that government stimulus packages would hold the key as to whether the emergency delays or advances would progress to include the consideration of the climate emergency as well.