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SEC hosts COP26 president Alok Sharma for six month anniversary event

by Joe Gallop

Six months on from COP26, Glasgow’s Scottish Event Campus (SEC), today, 16 May, welcomed back COP president, The Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP, as he hosted an event with SEC chief executive Peter Duthie.

The event marked six months since the end of the COP26 UN climate change conference and the signing of the Glasgow Climate Pact. Sharma (pictured) delivered a speech to attending guests, as well as a global live stream at which he warned world leaders that failure to honour commitments made at COP26 would be an “act of monstrous self-harm”.

Sharma set out his vision for the second half of the UK’s COP Presidency as well as updated on progress since COP26 and priorities in the lead up to COP27.

Sharma stressed the urgency of countries fulfilling promises made at COP26 and that the global community must move much faster in taking climate action over the next six months: “Every country must respond to the call to revisit and strengthen their nationally determined contribution (NDC). And they must do so in 2022. The Glasgow Climate Pact calls on countries to look again at their NDCs, not at some vague point in the future, but this year, in 2022.”

The event also coincides with the publication of the COP26 Sustainability Report, which aims to demonstrate the legacy of COP26 on Glasgow and beyond. The report sets out the conference’s impact on Scottish charities and low-income families, including donations of 6,000 items of furniture, 15,000sqm of carpets, and 600 laptops, some of which it is hoped will soon go to Ukrainian refugees.

Duthie said: “For many organisations in Glasgow and throughout Scotland, hosting COP26 acted as a real catalyst to amplify or accelerate sustainability action. Today’s speech from Mr Sharma has only reaffirmed the urgency for us to act at pace.

“We want to leave a lasting legacy for the SEC by changing behaviour, practices and process, reducing our impact on the environment and ensuring the SEC as a venue that delivers sustainable events.”

Details on the SEC’s sustainable measures and how it aims to become a net-zero campus by 2030 can be read here.

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