Francesca Di Fazio

COP26 started in Glasgow on Sunday the 31st of October. On Monday, hosting Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged world leaders taking part at the opening summit to act promptly on climate change in his “one minute to midnight” speech. Major world economies – and emitters – failed to set any concrete objectives at the G20 held in Rome on the eve of COP26. In Glasgow, they’re faced with the disappointment of young climate activists and the powerful testimonies of the most vulnerable states, where the effects of climate change are already a dire reality.

Now halfway through the summit, which is due to end on Friday the 12th of November, it’s time to review what progress has been made, and crucially, what challenges still lie ahead.

From Paris to Glasgow: five (plus one) years of climate change cooperation

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) the Conference of the Parties is due to meet every year. During COP21, held in Paris in 2015, participants agreed for the first time in history on the need for global collective action on climate change. Thus, 196 countries negotiated the Paris Agreement, including provisions to review progress on its goals every 5 years. COP26, which was delayed by one year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is the first occasion to assess countries’ climate policy up to this point.

“Countries will need to significantly step up their goals and actions if they want to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis”.

The picture, however, is not encouraging. According to the latest UNFCC report on NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions, or countries’ climate pledges under the Paris Agreement), under current national commitments, global greenhouse gas emissions are expected to rise by 15.9% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels. In order to keep global temperatures from rising above the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, carbon emissions alone should instead decrease by 45%, reaching net zero by 2050. In other words, countries will need to significantly step up their goals and actions if they want to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis. It’s no wonder that the Glasgow conference has been deemed “humanity’s last chance.”

“Coal, cars, cash and trees”

Action on climate change encompasses mitigation and adaptation strategies. Respectively, these focus on addressing the causes of climate change, such as greenhouse gas emissions, and on controlling the damage already done, for example by financially supporting communities in which frequent extreme weather events are increasingly causing death and displacement. The UK government’s approach to the COP26 agenda mirrors the recommended mix of these strategies. PM Johnson’s “coal, cars, cash and trees” formula outlines the conference’s main discussion points: decarbonisation, phase-out of fossil fuels, climate finance and land conservation.

The two-day leaders’ summit, opening the conference on the 1st and 2nd of November, has seen some timid progress. On Tuesday the United States, China and Brazil joined 128 other countries in signing the Declaration on Forests and Land Use, committing to stopping and reversing deforestation by 2030. On the same day, India made its first pledge to carbon neutrality, although it’s set target to reach net zero by 2070 appears rather underwhelming. On Wednesday, day 3 of the conference, 106 countries, including the US, the EU and the UK, agreed to pursue a 30% reduction in methane emissions by 2030.

On the other hand, talks on fossil fuels were generally disappointing. While a group of over 40 countries have agreed to phase out coal from their energy mix by 2030 to 2040, the deal doesn’t include some of the world’s largest carbon emitters such as Australia, China, India and the US. Finance also remains a thorny issue. This is due to the inequalities embedded in the global financial system and because high-income countries have fallen short of their promised funds to support lower-income countries coping with climate change effects.

The cost of divisions

“Like previous climate summits, COP26 is marked by political mistrust between the key players”.

The impression I gather from COP26 proceedings so far is one of fragmentation rather than cohesion. After Paris, there seems to be a general consensus that the current climate crisis is both man-made and a threat to humanity. But apparently, this isn’t enough to elicit meaningful cooperation. Like previous climate summits, COP26 is marked by political mistrust between the key players. Upon departing Glasgow on Tuesday, US President Biden criticised Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin for not attending the summit, remarking his country’s leadership role. China promptly hit back on Washington’s “empty words”, pointing at the five-year withdrawal from the Paris Agreement decided by Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump.

The US-China climate row is certainly a byproduct of wider tensions between the two countries on the international arena. It’s also part of a long tradition of development issues causing attrition in environmental governance. At the 1997 Kyoto climate conference, developed nations agreed to lead action on climate change under the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ framework. But with the rapid development of many national economies, especially the BRICS group, the industrialised West became less willing to bear the brunt of change. In particular, calls for China and India to take more responsibility are based on their current status as first and third global carbon dioxide emitters, respectively. However, emerging nations often point out that the wealthiest Western countries are still producing the most emission per capita. In 2018, for instance, the average American had a carbon footprint over twice as high as the average Chinese, and more than seven times as high as the average Indian.

The lingering discussion on responsibility, however, translates into inaction. And while the major global powers use climate politics as yet another international stage for their power struggles, people in the poorest and most vulnerable countries are bearing the human cost of that inaction. This cost is made up of preventable deaths and forced migration, among the indifference of the powerful.

“In the next days, the main challenge of COP26 will be to live up to the Paris Agreement’s core pledge”.

It took decades for politicians to take the threat of climate change seriously, but it could take even longer to establish cooperation in order to act effectively. In the next days, the main challenge of COP26 will be to live up to the Paris Agreement’s core pledge: putting all power interests aside in order to deal collectively with humanity’s biggest existential threat.

Image courtesy of Markus Spiske on Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.

Fran is a journalist with bylines in community news media and national magazines and a Twitter Editor at Empoword Journalism. They aim to uplift voices from marginalised and underprivileged communities through their work. They're a bookworm, a nature-lover and a chaotic good.

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