Mike Buckley considers what needs to be done to turn the positive rhetoric of the first week at COP26 into agreement and action
A climate expert in Glasgow described climate negotiations as a pitch battle between politics and physics. Inevitably, he said, physics wins.
Politicians used to finding compromise or outright ignoring a problem have no such recourse with the climate. World leaders either act to prevent rising temperatures or knowingly sign up future generations to climate chaos, which would inevitably mean political chaos, mass migration and conflict over scarce resources.
As COP26 begins its second week, there are fears that many politicians are still attempting to find a scientifically impossible compromise.
“We are nowhere near where we need to be” in cutting emissions, former US President Barack Obama told delegates at the start of this week. Most nations, he said, “have failed to be as ambitious as they need to be”.
Luke Pollard, Labour’s Shadow Environment Secretary, agrees. “The first week of COP showed that the world is willing on a deal, the second week must deliver a deal,” he told Byline Times. “We need to see global carbon emissions halved by 2030 but national pledges are way off achieving this. We need a step change in ambition and action if we are to avert an irreversible climate crisis.”
Barriers to Progress
Progress at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow has been hampered by a lack of ambition and political realities at home and abroad.
Some leaders, like America’s Joe Biden, face domestic political barriers that prevent them making serious commitments. The President’s hands are tied as he tries to win the support of Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat who represents coal-producing West Virginia, for his infrastructure plan.
The result has been soaring rhetoric on the need for swift climate action but few commitments. Biden disappointed attendees when he refused to sign up to a pledge to phase-out coal power, joining China and India in opting out of the 40-nation agreement. Together, these three nations represent 72% of global emissions from coal power.
Developing nations meanwhile fear that they will be required to commit to actions that would restrict their future development without sufficient help or matching commitments from the rich nations that caused the vast majority of carbon emissions.
“For countries in the global south there is a sensitivity about having things imposed on them from the north,” said Justin Adams, executive director of the Tropical Forest Alliance. “They are worried that there’s an anti-development agenda.”
Geopolitics has also hampered negotiations. China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, disappointed campaigners with its refusal to join the coal pact and President Xi Jinping’s non-attendance at COP26 – which ow drew a quick rebuke from Joe Biden. China had “walked away” from the climate challenge, he said. Beijing had undermined its own efforts to “assert a new role as a world leader”.
Others believe that the Chinese President’s absence is a direct result of rising Western antagonism towards China. The last year has seen the “US and major EU countries strengthen their condemnation and counter-measures against China [over] Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan and the South China Sea,” observed Yu Jie, a senior research fellow at Chatham House. “Overseas visits in this atmosphere are very difficult.”
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1.5 Degrees Looks Lost
The result has been progress that no one believes will be anywhere near enough to guarantee that global temperatures remain below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels – the goal agreed at Paris in 2015.
Scientists estimate that the world’s carbon budget – the total amount of carbon we can emit before 1.5 degrees is irreversibly breached – will be hit in about 11 years without concerted action to reduce emissions.
The world needs to cut 22Gt of planned annual carbon emissions by 2030. Commitments made during the first week of COP26, even if fully implemented, would close this ‘ambition gap’ by 9Gt, leaving 13Gt to go. Similarly, current commitments on methane would account for just one-third of needed cuts.
Closing the rest of the gap is a huge task, and while current progress is not enough, there are signs that both developed and developing nations are moving beyond rhetoric to action.
Many experts believe that it would be wrong to take President Xi Jinping’s absence from COP26 as a sign that China has abandoned its commitment to move away from coal. It is forecast to spend $3.4 trillion over the next decade to reduce emissions – more than the US and the EU combined.
There was also some unexpectedly good news. India committed to net zero, albeit by 2070 rather than 2050. Developed countries committed $8.5 billion to help South Africa abandon coal. 100 countries entered the methane deal, even if big emitters did not sign up. A deal to end deforestation by 2030, while incomplete, marked significant progress.
Paris Commitments Incomplete
There was movement too on the crucial question of money. Rich nations promised to give $100 billion a year by 2020 at the Paris summit in 2015. That sum was missed in 2020 and 2021, but is expected to be met in 2023.
Around $80 billion will have been ‘given’ by the end of 2021. One issue concerning developing nations is that of the money richer nations have already given. Only one-fifth of this has been in the form of grants, according to Oxfam. Much of the rest has been loans. Developing nations want donations to be 100% grants by 2023, particularly as they face higher costs from climate related damage to infrastructure year on year.
There is also movement on private finance, which will be essential if the global economy is to make the required shift in time.
Former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), announced that banks, investors and insurers representing $130 trillion in assets had committed to de