From an environmental summit to corporate responsibility: the legacy of COP26.

By José Ernesto Flores, Bachelor

Internationalist and environmental consultant.

External consultant | EAS LATAM Group

For a long time, climate change was perceived as a distant concern, a challenge for future generations. Reality, however, has changed that perception. In recent years, we have seen more intense and less predictable weather events: extraordinary rainfall in traditionally arid areas, severe storms during mass weather events, unprecedented heat waves, and massive wildfires. Added to this are pressures directly linked to human activity, such as illegal logging, overexploitation of the oceans, ecosystem degradation, and a carbon footprint that continues to grow. In this scenario, the conversation is no longer solely environmental; today it is also economic and business-related. It was precisely in this context that COP26, held in Glasgow in 2021, marked a turning point by paving the way for commitments that now impact regulation, markets, and risk management in organizations.

Four years later, that turning point is reflected in regulation, carbon markets, risk management, supply chains, and corporate reporting. For companies, the fundamental question is no longer whether climate change matters, but how it translates into business decisions, controls, indicators, and ultimately, financial planning.

In this edition: we review what Glasgow left behind, how much progress has been made since then, what it means for business management and why its effects end up reaching the financial conversation.

• Commitments on forests, methane and temperature are still far from the necessary path.

• Regulatory and reporting pressure is increasing to turn climate goals into verifiable processes, data, and controls.

• The financial effect appears at the end of the chain: access to capital, cost of financing, liquidity, asset value, and corporate disclosure.

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Executive context: from Rio to Glasgow

COP26 was the twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This process began at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992; it was followed by milestones such as the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and the Paris Agreement in 2015.

Today, the Convention has 198 Parties: 197 States and the European Union. Decisions are made by consensus, which gives them political weight, but also explains why progress is often gradual. In addition to governments, international organizations, businesses, academia, social organizations, and indigenous peoples participate, contributing information, experience, and public pressure.

Costa Rica had a visible presence in Glasgow, promoting, along with Denmark, the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance. For the business sector, these kinds of signals matter because they anticipate the direction of public policies, investor expectations, and responsible operating standards. What is agreed upon abroad sooner or later impacts local operations.

What Glasgow left for the business agenda

The central outcome was the Glasgow Climate Pact. For the first time, a consensus decision explicitly mentioned the progressive reduction of non-carbon coal use and the phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Although the final wording was less ambitious than expected, it sent a clear signal to governments, markets, and energy-intensive industries.

Much of the Paris Agreement's rulebook was also finalized, particularly regarding carbon markets. Simply put, rules were established for registering and transferring emissions reductions between countries and preventing the same reduction from being counted twice. For businesses, this is crucial because the credibility of carbon credits and climate reports depends on reliable and traceable systems.

Furthermore, Glasgow called for more ambitious national targets, advocated for increased funding for adaptation, and initiated a more formal dialogue on loss and damage. Commitments on deforestation and methane reduction were also announced. While not all commitments carried the same weight, they did reinforce a trend: environmental issues are now integrated into economic, regulatory, and reputational management. The question, then, is how much of this agenda has translated into concrete results.

2026 Assessment: Real progress, but insufficient

In terms of implementation, progress has been uneven. Some decisions made in Glasgow helped to streamline regulations, accelerate commitments, and increase political pressure on governments and productive sectors. However, moving from global declarations to verifiable results remains the biggest challenge: goals require policies, data, accountability, monitoring, and real capacity for implementation.

In forests and methane, the outlook is even more challenging. In 2024, approximately 8.1 million hectares of forest were lost, a figure 63% higher than the rate needed to halt deforestation by 2030. The 2025 global methane report also indicates that emissions are still rising and that the plans submitted up to the middle of that year, even if fully implemented, would still fall short of the 30% global reduction pledged in Glasgow.

Temperature remains the broadest and most concerning indicator. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that, even with full implementation of current national targets, the world is on track for warming of between 2.3°C and 2.5°C this century; with current policies, the projection is around 2.8°C. In plain Costa Rican terms: there's progress, but it's not enough.

Climate finance is also showing progress, although significant gaps remain. The goal of mobilizing USD 100 billion annually to developing countries was first achieved in 2022, two years behind schedule. According to the OECD, this target was surpassed for the third consecutive year, reaching USD 136.7 billion in 2024. This is good news, yes, but it doesn't end the discussion: it still matters when these resources arrive, how they are distributed, and how much is actually allocated to adaptation versus mitigation.

Why this should be on management's agenda

For an organization, these agreements may seem distant until they impact energy costs, raw material availability, supply chain continuity, permits, reputation, asset value, or relationships with customers and suppliers. At that point, climate change ceases to be solely an environmental issue and becomes part of strategic planning and risk management.

That is precisely the logic behind IFRS 1 and IFRS 2: to identify and explain the sustainability and climate risks and opportunities that can affect an organization's prospects, and to connect that information with general-purpose financial reporting. The idea is not to produce a separate environmental report simply to comply, but to generate useful, comparable information supported by reliable processes. Therefore, the financial perspective should appear as a result of a well-understood climate management strategy, not as an isolated issue.

The question for senior management is practical: Does the organization have sufficient data, processes, and controls to explain how climate risks and opportunities can affect its operations and, ultimately, its financial performance, liquidity, financing, and growth prospects?

At EAS LATAM we help organizations translate this conversation into useful information for management: identifying risks and opportunities, connecting operational data and financial effects, structuring indicators, strengthening controls and preparing for disclosure frameworks such as IFRS S1 and IFRS S2.

Takeaway closure

The main lesson from Glasgow is simple: climate goals only generate value when they are translated into measurable plans, budgets, controls, and transparent reporting. For businesses, preparing doesn't mean simply filling out reports; it means better understanding the business, anticipating risks, organizing data, and making decisions based on more robust information. In other words, managing climate change also means protecting the business's financial stability.

References

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2021). The Glasgow Climate Pact - Key outcomes from COP26.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2026) .

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2026). Climate finance provided and mobilised by developed countries in 2013-2024.

United Nations Environment Programme. (2025). Emissions Gap Report 2025.

United Nations Environment Programme and Climate and Clean Air Coalition. (2025). Global Methane Status Report 2025.

Forest Declaration Assessment Partners. (2025). Forest Declaration Assessment 2025.

IFRS Foundation. (2026). IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information.

IFRS Foundation. (2026). IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures.