COP26 is coming – is there any reason to be optimistic?

“The light that we see at the end of the tunnel is a train that is coming to drive all over us. So we need to make the necessary decisions,” Mayor of Athens Kostas Bakoyannis told Euronews on Tuesday, September 20 at an interactive debate on climate change and weather extremes. The panel of leading climate scientists and policy-makers conveyed a message of cautious optimism, saying it was still up to us to change course after a summer of extreme weather in Europe and elsewhere underscored the worsening impacts of climate change on our communities. This important conversation took place just a few weeks after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned time was running out to avert the worst effects of climate change, and ahead of crucial UN climate talks in Glasgow known as COP26.

Meet our panel: – Kostas Bakoyannis, mayor of Athens – Samantha Burgess, Copernicus Climate Change service – Valérie Masson-Delmotte, IPCC co-chair – Robert Vautard, IPCC author