“So, how was COP?”
Since coming back from Glasgow, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been asked that. To be honest, that’s a complicated question, so this answer might be lengthy.
I think for people casually following the headlines it can be really difficult to tell how this process actually works. Effectively, countries come together to agree texts relating to specific topics. As time goes on, the square brackets (contentious text) are gradually removed as countries agree through consultations and meetings.
As an Observer, you’re allowed to sit in on some of these consultations. The first time I did this was for a meeting on “Action for Climate Empowerment” or “ACE” (all about public participation and climate education). I found myself in a room full of people who spent 20mins debating which part of the document to discuss and 45mins making seemingly minor decisions about which previous documents to reference and how to colour code agreed text (yes, really).
I left that meeting feeling pretty despondent. In a system where everyone needs to agree to be able to move on, progress is painfully slow or non-existent.
Fast forward two days and I’m sitting in a bar in central Glasgow at 10.45pm with a load of youth delegates who have been trying to influence the ACE negotiations. We’d got chatting as the negotiations (originally scheduled to start at 6pm) got pushed later and later. At 9.45pm, when it looked like nothing was going to happen that evening, we left the conference centre, only to hear that the session was to resume at 10pm when we couldn’t get back in. Instead, we got live updates and I was able to watch as these guys found out that, as a direct result of their lobbying and talks with negotiators, the agreed text put a far greater emphasis on youth participation than any ACE text had done before.
It’s only a small example, but it shows how this process works. Civil society groups do so much within the system and progress can be made. The process is complicated, slow and extremely tedious. But with this in mind, it’s all the more miraculous that this has allowed us something as potentially remarkable as the Paris Agreement.
This might all sound positive, on balance, but that’s far from the whole story. In all honesty, it’s extremely hard to see pictures of fancy drinks receptions taking place whilst small island states are making pleas for their very existence. It’s difficult to see 100,000 people protesting on the streets of Glasgow and then walk back into a conference centre where you wouldn’t know a march was happening. It’s painful to listen to stories of young activists, often Indigenous/people of colour, as they tell you about their friends who have been, in some cases, detained or thrown out of the conference. It’s an outrage to watch negotiators passionately advocate for seemingly green policies and then see through the rhetoric to realise that that means they want the worse of two options. It makes me livid to hear negotiators get emotional as they call for the protection of their own grandchildren’s future, whilst effectively ignoring the impacts felt by children around the world today by blocking funding on loss and damage and adaptation. It’s honestly difficult to watch as last-minute changes in wording are made which water down any commitments on coal.
The system is flawed. I’m frustrated that, despite some progress, COP26 has not achieved the level of ambition it needed to. I’m angry that people were excluded from the negotiations. I’m angry that people pretend to be listening but can't translate that to taking action at the scale needed. And I’m angry that all these issues give the impression that no one within the Blue Zone cares, hiding the thousands of people who do.
I don’t know what the solution is. If I was asked to start from scratch to design a system for dealing with global climate change, I would want to make sure that it included diverse voices of the people most affected. I would want a system where each country has an equal vote and where the Marshall Islands could speak after China and be taken just as seriously. I would want to design a system where NGOs and smaller states could physically talk to decisionmakers in corridors and meeting rooms, to get their concerns placed front and centre in the talks. I would want a system where, as the science gets more dire, more ambitious proposals can be implemented. I would want a conference where there are more trees and chances to sleep.
The thing is (other than the trees and the sleep!), these things are already in place. Some of them are extremely flawed, but they are the best we’ve got.
I don’t really like that as an argument, but at the moment I can’t do any better. I understand that for many people the very “conference-y” bits of the Blue Zone are frustrating. Many young activists I spoke to found the business cards, the suits and the talks about innovative technologies bizarre, and a long way from what they expected people responding to a climate emergency to look like. I get that, but I think it’s more complicated. Although they weren’t running around in a panic, the negotiators I spoke to absolutely understood the urgency of the issue. Handing out business cards and wearing a suit doesn’t detract from that.
There’s so much more that needs to be done. Not just on climate action, but on the systems and processes that allow us to get there. There are huge improvements to be made, especially around inclusion, access and transparency, but I get frustrated when people say we should do away with these things altogether.
In the next few days and weeks, there are going to be so many hot takes on whether COP26 was a success or failure. There will be political spin saying it's a win and there will be pub conversations saying it was a complete waste of time and money.
Whatever conversations you have, or headlines you read, I’d suggest steering away from any simplistic takes on this whole thing. I would caution against saying that the UNFCCC will never be able to achieve anything, that delegates don’t care and that the planet and humanity is doomed. There’s plenty of hope to be found: whether through countries leading the way on ambitious policies, or the groundswell of energy from the people on the streets of Glasgow.
But I’d also caution against anyone who puts too much emphasis on the COP process. To think that a handful of world leaders are going to turn up to a conference, write a text which ‘saves the world’ and sorts everything out is to fundamentally misunderstand both the nature of COP and the nature of the problem. Climate change is bigger than that. It’s multifaceted and complicated and individuals and regional governments and business and many other groups have a role to play.
Given this nuance, it’s hard to process this whole experience in a way that makes sense.
Personally, I’m coming away from COP26 caring more about climate change than I previously thought I could. Because it’s impossible not to.
I’ve spoken to activists who have had homes and livelihoods destroyed, who relive trauma to try and give a ‘human face’ to this disaster. I’ve seen so many examples of hope, progress and determination to keep going, whatever the headline agreements. I’ve seen that the COP process, despite being flawed, slow and far from inclusive, has the potential to get us out of this hole.
When it comes to climate, there’s a lot of talk about 2050.
In 2050, I’ll be 56. I’m not quite sure about career paths yet, but these few weeks have made me realise that I want to be there, at COP55, to be able to say “it looked pretty dire in Glasgow, but we did it”.
The challenge for me, like the rest of the world I guess, is to just figure out how to get there.
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