Three lessons from the ongoing COP26
The gathering in Glasgow has already made the halfway point. Some outcomes are still pending but there are three lessons we have already learned.
Credits to Shadi Ghanim
By now, you probably know I am very sceptic about the outcomes of COP26. And like me, many more. It’s not cynicism — it’s observation. This is COP TWENTY-SIX: there have been 25 COPs before and what is the result? The global concentration of carbon in the atmosphere has been marching up 2 parts per million every single year for the past three decades.
Certainly, the parade of 70 plus private jets parked up at various Scottish airports doesn’t help to revert this trend. Nor the fact that, according to the provisional list published by the UNFCCC, a total of 39,509 participants registered for the event, making it the most well-attended COP in history. It tops both COP21 in Paris (30,372) and COP15 in Copenhagen (27,301). Was it necessary in the midst of a pandemic? You have the answer.
Looking at the big picture the story has, once again, repeated itself. The rime of diplomacy that we see at COPs is so dull and monotonous that Stefan Aykut, Professor of sociology at the University of Hamburg, has coined a new term to describe it. “Incantatory governance” is the idea that rituals reinforce certain behaviors or change perceptions of reality.
I have tried to remain focus and avoid the distractions of this incantatory system. Although the Glasgow gathering is still ongoing, there are three lessons that I have already learned.
1. A huge PR and communication effort
At the opening two-days of COP26, 115 leaders took the summit pulpit, in an annual rite of penance — apologizing for historic bad behaviors on climate and pledging to eventually become pure, but not yet.
But let’s be honest: there was a huge communication effort concentrated in those 48 hours. And I want to give credits to the comms people that have worked behind the scenes (no, it’s not the Presidents or Ministers writing the speeches themselves). So, I’ll share with you my favorite one.
Alok Sharma was appointed as President for COP26 by his pompous friend Boris Johnson. A former City of London banker, Alok was a sort of climate beginner when he got the job in early 2020. In his opening address, he said that COP26 is “the last, best hope to keep 1.5 in reach”.
As written by Oliver Morton, “last, best hope” is a curious phrase. Both the adjectives are in the superlative, thus conferring uniqueness: there can be only one last hope, and only one best one. Is there any reason why these two hopes should be the same? No. Honestly, it is quite an empty statement — but it undoubtedly sounds good.
2. Keep the 1.5ºC goal – whatever it takes
COP26 is a climate-diplomacy event, and so its focus is more on the soft rather than the hard skills. Nonetheless, the 1.5ºC limit is becoming a sort of obsession for our leaders because it has both a practical and a symbolic importance.
Practically, passing the 1.5ºC increase in global temperatures will rise the amount of sea-level to the point that many islands will literally be under-water. Their inhabitants will lose everything they have (imagine for a second!) and become climate migrants.
Symbolically, there is no President or Prime Minister sitting at Glasgow that will ever admit that achieving the 1.5ºC target has become impossible. Simply because they have committed to it. Have you ever found “failure” in the politicians’ vocabulary? I haven’t.
3. Negative emissions are an evergreen promise
With the current state of climate negotiations, chances that we will not exceed the 1.5ºC target are very low. But according to our leaders’ rhetoric, here comes the magic: negative emission technologies.
Being part of all existing climate models, they simply add one more level of uncertainty. Without these technologies, there would be no remotely plausible level of emissions reduction that keep global temperatures from breaking through 1.5ºC.
But our leaders have accepted that such technologies exist, will be cheap and scalable at some indefinite point in the future, so it is impossible to say when 1.5ºC ends up “out of reach”. You can always promise more negative emissions further down the line.
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To conclude, Mr Sharma’s statement above is very slippery and political. Therefore, highly significant in the context of COP26. And so is his goal: Alok is not interested in signing up targets that could measurably impact on the cursed carbon concentration in the atmosphere.
He just wants enough commitments from enough parties to agree that 1.5ºC is still in reach. So that leaders can keep the “Paris prophecy” alive and show that enough was done at COP26. And Mr Sharma can proudly say that he has transformed the “last, best hope” into reality. As a former City of London banker, you can imagine how important a boost to his personal ego is.
