26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP), COP26 was held from October 31 to November 12, 2021 in Glasgow. Thousands of delegates came together with the motto Together for Our Planet. With a target to reach global net zero toward the middle of the century, goals at COP26 were identified as limiting temperature rise to 1.5oC within reach, ensuring adaptation for protecting communities and natural habitats, mobilizing finance, and achieving collective action. “It’s high time to act,” COP26 President Alok Sharma said, and “Addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink. We are digging our own grave,” UN Secretary General António Guterres warned. Alliances were formed, statements, consensus and commitments were announced. Coal, oil, natural gas, land and forests, renewable resources, hydrogen, electric vehicles, energy efficiency and climate finance topics came to the fore. Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA), an international alliance of governments and stakeholders working together to facilitate the managed phase-out of oil and gas production, with the founding countries Denmark and Costa Rica, core members France, Sweden, Ireland, Greenland, Quebec, Wales, and associate members Italy, Portugal, New Zealand, California, is making efforts to phase out oil and gas production.
The Energy Transition Council (ETC) set out 2022 Strategic Priorities with the goal of making clean and sustainable power the most affordable and reliable option for all countries to meet their power needs efficiently, help them move away from coal and other fossil fuels and accelerate their transition to clean energy, and presented a statement to limit global warming to manageable levels.
The need for a just transition to achieve better energy access was highlighted, emphasizing the importance of countries’ updated Nationally Determined Contributions. ETC is very important for reducing and monitoring energy-based greenhouse gas emissions.
33 countries including Turkey, 40 cities, 11 vehicle manufacturers and 27 fleet-owning organizations signed the Glasgow Consensus for Zero Emission Vehicles. Electrification is important in transportation. The leaders pledged to work together in accelerating the dissemination of low-cost and affordable clean technologies and sustainable solutions necessary to achieve the Paris Agreement goals at the COP26 World Leaders Summit: Statement on the Breakthrough Agenda. This statement, the developments related to oil and zero emission vehicles are followed closely in the lubricants industry. Green transformation, climate-friendly progress is important for oil and natural gas, which are both energy resource and raw material for chemicals and base oils. In this context, reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the lifecycle of lubricants, minimizing their effects on the climate crisis to the lowest possible values technically, producing lubricants with low carbon footprint, managing waste oils in the best way and biolubricants are important. It should be underlined that the lubricant has an impact on the footprint of the production and product where it is used, and therefore the demand for green options in the market will gradually increase.
