The Situation in Glasgow
COP26 officially ended yesterday, with the Conference producing their joint agreement, the Glasgow Climate Pact. Reaction to the Pact has been mixed, with some praising the agreement as historic, and leaving others feeling underwhelmed.
The main goals of this summit were to cut greenhouse gas emissions by decreasing fossil fuel usage, reduce deforestation, and secure financial aid for developing nations and those nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The Conference aimed to help developing nations move past fossil fuels quickly, and allow them to essentially ‘cut out the middleman’ of fossil fuels and move to renewable energy.
The Glasgow Climate Pact, agreed to by all 197 nations in attendance, does indeed address these issues, but not as radically as some had hoped. The final Pact is the only such agreement to explicitly mention fossil fuels, specifically coal, by name. It involves an intention to “phase down” the use of coal, an alteration from the originally agreed text, which used the phrase “phase out”. This wording was changed after delegates from China and India protested against it late in the process. The change was defended by Indian Climate Minister Bhupender Yadav, who asked how developing nations could commit to phasing out coal when they “have still to deal with their development agendas and poverty eradication”.
The Pact also promises financial aid for developing nations, and includes an agreement to re-visit each of their pledges at COP27 in 2022. Also, 110 nations, including China, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the US and the UK, have pledged to end deforestation by 2030. The signatories to this pledge account for over 85% of the world’s forests, and it includes almost £14 billion ($19.2bn) of public and private funds to achieve this goal.
Further to this, a £1.1 billion fund is to be set up to protect the Congo Basin, the world’s second-largest rainforest, 28 nations have pledged to remove deforestation from the global food trade, and 30 of the world’s largest financial companies, including Aviva and Schroders, have promised to end investment into deforestation.
The Reaction
In the aftermath of the proceedings, there is a general consensus among spectators and commentators that COP26 has not solved the issue of climate change, but has laid a solid foundation upon which the real work of ending this crisis can begin.
While some will see COP26 as a major leap forward for the cause (which in many regards it is), others, particularly young people and climate activists, feel betrayed. COP26 was billed as a turning point in the fight against climate change, either towards humanity’s salvation from this issue if real radical change was implemented, or its damnation if apathy won out.
More conservative spectators will see the final Pact as radical, being the first to name fossil fuels as the driving force behind global warming, and pledging to end, not just reduce or ‘phase down’, to end and reverse deforestation by the next decade. Others are not so optimistic. The phasing out of fossil fuels is key to ending this crisis, and while all present nations intend to limit coal use after COP26, there is still no general agreement to completely end fossil fuel usage in its current capacity.
Nations still seem very reluctant to commit to something as radical as this, and many would argue that the world is not yet ready for such a drastic commitment. However, until this vital step is taken, the existential threat of climate change will continue to grow and grow until it becomes unmanageable.
Indeed, if all pledges made at COP26 are kept, it will still not limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Agreements made at the summit will lead to a global rise of 1.8 – 2.4 degrees, by conservative estimates. UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres has said, “We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe. It is time to go into emergency mode, or our chance of reaching net zero will itself be zero.”
The difference between a 1.5 degree and 2.4 degree rise in global temperatures may not seem like a large jump, but climate scientists and experts agree that if 1.5 is exceeded, millions of human lives will be at risk.
Barry O
Among the notable speakers at the summit was former US President Barack Obama. His tone was optimistic, and he frequently referenced the Paris Climate Agreement which his administration was instrumental in securing as a launching pad for the struggle ahead.
He noted that during the past four years of the Trump Presidency, the US’s role in combatting the climate crisis had been significantly reduced, and that US prestige had been damaged by his successor’s lack of leadership ability, and lack of foresight in such moves as pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement (which he affirmed that current US President Joe Biden had re-joined).
Obama acknowledged that there is still a very long way to go to end this crisis, and that humanity is still collectively falling short to contain it. He noted that the US has designated climate change as a national security threat, and expressed his hope that Glasgow would see a surge in activity committed to reducing global temperature rises.
He praised the efforts of his contemporary, President Biden, and the work his administration is doing to address the issue, including Biden’s highly ambitious $2 trillion green infrastructure bill, which is due to be signed into American law on the 15th of this month.
Obama listed ambitious targets set by nations around the world, including the UK’s plan to cut emissions by 80% by 2030, the EU’s plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, Canada’s plan for net zero by 2050, and South Korea’s plan to cut emissions by 35% by 2030. All of these, he said, were reasons to be optimistic about the future, proof that real change can be accomplished if governments cooperate.
Central to his speech was his abiding faith in young people, that those who will live to see the future have the most cause to want to change it, and lawmakers owe it to their children and children’s children to make the future habitable for them. He urged those young people who are frustrated at the current pace of things to “stay frustrated, stay angry”, and stay motivated on this issue, hold politicians to account for their decisions, and affect real change at every opportunity they are presented with.
The Money
President Obama raised a point that for many is the real lynchpin of this issue; the financial viability of ecological sustainability.
Without the sheer financial bulk of the private sector, the goals set at COP26, and any future goals will be significantly harder to achieve. Businesses and investors need to be assured that the global market is moving towards renewable energy and steadfastly away from fossil fuels.
Serious motivations for corporations to go greener need to be introduced, and an environment in which ecologically sustainable businesses can not only thrive, but out-perform firms not committed to saving the world needs to be fostered. Measures such as tax incentives for those corporations working towards net zero, higher tariffs on fossil fuel imports, retraining programmes for those working in the fossil fuel industry, and increased costs and business taxes for apathetic companies would surely help to achieve this.
The private sector has never been seen as the driving force behind climate activism (more as its foe), but a growing number of businesses are realising that if action on this issue isn’t meaningfully implemented into their operations, not only will our planet’s natural resources and environments continue to be irreversibly destroyed, but their bottom lines will suffer as well.
A third of the global banking sector has agreed to align their operations with the core values of the Paris Climate Agreement, and a fifth of the world’s largest companies have set net zero goals. While these numbers might seem disappointing, they are surely larger than they were when the Paris Agreement was signed, and they are proof that the private sector is slowly getting on board with saving the world.
Outside Interests
One of the more disturbing revelations from COP26 was the amount of delegates representing the fossil fuel industry in attendance.
They held the plurality at the summit, with more delegates associated with fossil fuel companies than any national delegation; Brazil had the largest national delegation, consisting of 479 representatives, compared to 503 delegates representing fossil fuel interests, according to the participant list published by the UN, and NGO Global Witness.
Also, there were fossil fuel lobbyists present in 27 national delegations, making it possible for them to access talks within the summit, and be a part of negotiations and decision making. One of these lobbyists attempted to justify this fact to the BBC, reasoning that the world isn’t going to suddenly stop using fossil fuels, and net zero targets won’t be hit the night after the summit. Therefore, while fossil fuels continue to be a necessity for modern life, their interests should still be considered.
This holds the same logic as a tobacco lobbyist at a health convention; by allowing fossil fuel interests into COP26’s discussions, we seem to be forgetting that the fossil fuel industry is the driving force behind this crisis more than any other sector on Earth. They hold not only a plurality of delegates at COP26, but plurality of the blame for the dire situation we now find ourselves in.
Evidence that fossil fuels harm the environment has been accepted by the scientific community for decades, and yet we have only seen real transformative action on this issue very recently. It is counterintuitive that they should be present at such an event, let alone able to influence decision making.
Future COPs need to address this issue, and ensure that if those representing fossil fuel interests are present, that their influence is minimal, and their interests are put firmly at the back of the queue.
Always Forward
One of the most vocal commentators during this summit was renowned climate activist Greta Thunberg. She has been amongst the most critical voices in the past fortnight, conveying her disappointment and distrust of large climate summits such as COP26.
She said that “COP has turned into a PR event,” and called the summit, “a global north greenwash festival”. She accused leaders present at the summit of “not only doing nothing, but actively creating loopholes and shaping frameworks to benefit themselves, and to continue profiting from this destructive system.” Indeed, the watered-down final agreement reached yesterday will have been of particular concern to activists like Thunberg, and will act as proof that the assembled nations of the world still cannot see past the short-term to start saving our planet.
Whilst Thunberg’s frustration and cynicism are very, very easy to understand, and while everyone (excluding the aforementioned fossil fuel companies) would have loved to have seen a lot more achieved at this summit, it has brought the issue further still into the forefront of political debate, and has done, and will do wonders for the advancement of the cause as a whole.
Progress is being made. No steps backwards have been taken yet, and while the steps we take in the very near future need to be a lot larger and more ambitious than what we have seen at COP26, we are constantly moving this issue forward. More than this, the list of people and groups who actively oppose climate activism grows shorter by the day. The voices of climate deniers and fossil fuel interests, while still present, are quieter now than they used to be, and overt political opposition to climate activism, once commonplace, is now rare.
In the UK, the issue is no longer a source of political tension, with both sides of the House of Commons accepting the danger posed by climate change and taking increasingly progressive climate stances. While there is still a lot of work to do, and COP26 did not have the radical outcomes which most of us were hoping for, this summit should be a source of hope.
As the issue gains more and more traction with the people of the world, as it becomes more prevalent in everyday life, politicians will no longer be able to make excuses for a lack of radical action. Real, transformative change is coming, it is now only a matter of time.
Our Place in the Universe
This has been a slightly longer post than usual, for which I apologise. To compensate, I will end with a little bit of scientific speculation.
The Kardashev Scale was proposed in 1964 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev as a way of categorising civilisations by technological advancement based on the amount of energy required for the civilisation to function.
Kardashev proposed three levels of technological advancement to categorise civilisations, although extensions were added later that appear to be more akin to science fiction than educated speculation. A Type 1 civilisation is one that is able to harness the energy created by its parent planet to fuel itself. A Type 2 civilisation is one that is able to harness the energy created by its parent star to fuel itself, and a Type 3 civilisation is one that is able to harness the energy created by its parent galaxy to fuel itself.
Each of these categories represents a profound leap forward in technology, allowing that civilisation to reach dizzying heights of scientific advancement and energy collection to further propel itself, sustainably, into the future.
Presently, human civilisation, in all its tens of thousands of years of recorded history, has yet to reach the first stage of Kardashev’s scale. We are a ‘Type 0’ civilisation, still reliant on what we dig out of the ground and burn for our energy.
The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is not only a measure taken to preserve our civilisation, but a step taken to advance it also, as we start to run our planet on energy produced by our planet, not taken from it.
The future of our civilisation has the potential to be greater and more magnificent than most can even dream of, as we harness the sun, the galaxy, and beyond to carve our names into the stars. But before all that can be achieved, we firstly and foremostly must kick our fossil fuel habit, not only for self-preservation, but for the advancement of our species.
stay safe
/e
