The climate gods are angry about COP26
Like a thunderbolt hurled from the sky, following the signing of the Glasgow Climate Pact, B.C. was devastated by its second climate disaster in six months. It was as if it were a message from the climate gods about their displeasure at the weakness of COP26.
Only hours before, we watched the flash of annoyance followed by anguish pass over chair Alok Sharma’s face, as the delegate from India stabbed his finger on the conference podium at a piece of paper. It was breathtaking. In the final minutes of a two-week drama, COP26 was about to fail at the finish line. Witnessing, live, the harrowing final hours of this unique gathering — literally juggling the fate of the world — was fascinating. We never get more than staged glimpses of the political battles at the G7 or other global forums.
Whether you were appalled or simply resigned at the sight of India’s successful last-minute power play to water down the commitment to phase out coal, it was high drama to watch it unfold. Minutes before the final concession, Reuters reported that China, India, the U.S. and the EU were huddling just off the floor. China pushed India to demand with them the “soft on coal” language, threatening not to sign the pact if they were refused.
The COP gatherings are always disappointing: much is promised and much less delivered. But this one had a level of urgency and conviction, across all but a few miscreant players, that has not been seen before. A former colleague used to call the international conferences we endured as “oceans of words, flowing into deserts of inaction.” But COP is different for several reasons.
There is no forum in the world like it. This is a decision-making body, made of up of nearly every nation on earth. The world has never succeeded at something this ambitious — and we have often failed. The League of Nations, collapsed; the UN, paralyzed by big power veto; the WTO, at risk of irrelevance.
At COP there is little hierarchy of power. The Maldives delegate, a powerful and impassioned campaigner, has the same access to the world’s attention as the U.S. It operates by consensus, so the major powers need to fight for Tuvalu’s support, not just that of their peers. Of course, there are side deals and hidden coalitions; everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.
Still, this is a body which nudges nations to transform their economies and entire societies from the ground up. This time, COP made some real progress, both on the detail and depth of some of the commitments, but also on the widening array of those willing to sign up to some very hard challenges.
Foot draggers like Australia, China, India and Indonesia came under real political pressure inside and — more importantly — outside the hall. One could sense for the first time a sense of near panic about island nations’ survival, about extreme weather becoming more severe for everyone.
Watching John Kerry weave back and forth between groups, pleading for consensus; listening to the impassioned Africans telling the world of their climate suffering; witnessing the pain on the faces of the poorer nations’ delegates at the hard compromises they must swallow — you knew this was for real. As Kerry put it, very few public officials get to make decisions of this magnitude, choices about the very fate of the world.
Precisely a year from now, COP27 will gather in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. It will probably take place after another gruelling year of fires, floods and drought. B.C. will have been afflicted with another horrific year of climate crisis year. Given live television coverage, what the conference decides really will take place, as the old cliche has it, “with the whole world watching.” We’ll see whether this year’s small progress can be pushed into real change. ROBIN V. SEARS WAS AN NDP STRATEGIST FOR 20 YEARS AND LATER SERVED AS A COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER TO BUSINESSES AND GOVERNMENTS