"A new vortex is forming"
Are we, as Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations commented, “still careening towards catastrophe“?
The numbers don’t look good; add up all the COP 26 pledges, according to Climate Action Tracker, and we are still on a pathway to 2.4°C of warming, potentially 2.7°C if you factor in pledges that aren’t backed by policies delivering implementation.
And there were glaring gaps in Glasgow on some of the big issues – the commitment to phase coal “down” not “out”, aviation unaddressed, the gaps in international climate financing for adaptation.
So we didn’t cross the finishing line. From business to government to civil society, no one group showed the ability to drive decarbonisation at the speed and scope required.
An outstanding COP, one Middle Eastern observer commented, if it had happened five years ago.
But one critical thing emerged from COP 26: the outline of a new ecosystem.
From the First Mover Coalition, to the agreement to review targets against science more regularly (ratcheting up the ratchet mechanism), and the vital commitments on methane and forestry, the COP process, 26 years on, and despite Covid-19, is proving it can drive transformation.
A new vortex is forming, where business, government and civil society are collaborating to shape the new institutions and mechanisms that can drive us back on track.
Careening to catastrophe? There’s a carbon chasm that we’re still headed towards, but for the first time, accelerated by COP 26, we are getting the pieces together for the raft to get us over it.
"Business is clearly getting the message"
Glasgow's climate summit extends the long tradition of countries making promises to cut emissions while taking no substantive actions to deliver on their pledges.
Take, for example, the “new” commitments now made to cut deforestation. They are virtually identical to those made at previous COPs. Meanwhile rapid loss of woodland continues in countries such as Brazil.
So there is good reason to be pessimistic about while be achieved in Glasgow.
The leaders flew in, offered exaggerated and undeliverable commitments and then flew back home, making no substantial changes to their domestic climate change policies.
Yes, we have seen some unexpected changes to the public stance of major countries. No one expected India to offer a date for achieving net zero, for example.
But the lack of any detailed planning for exactly how the promises will be delivered means that we should be cynical about what will actually be achieved by the Glasgow conference.
We have also heard no acknowledgements of the difficulties of achieving the industrial revolution that the world desperately needs.
Very few of our leaders have had the courage to honestly summarise the ugly disruptions and painful adjustments that will need to be made. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson went so far as to deny that there will be any costs at all, saying: “we can build back greener without so much as a hair shirt in sight”.
Nevertheless, there are reasons for optimism.
The first is the growing evidence of deep support within electorates for genuine, large-scale and effective climate policies.
In almost all major countries the preservation of the global environment has risen sharply up the list of issues voters care about.
This concern may not yet translate into a willingness to bear all the costs of the transition to climate stability, and the constraints that this will place on our lifestyles. Nevertheless, the crowds of activists from the around the world thronging Glasgow’s streets are powerful evidence that climate may soon become the most important political issue.
And, as importantly, business is clearly getting the message that long-term survival is dependent on individual companies carving out a route to zero emissions for themselves.
The enterprises that want to forge alliances with their customers to hasten decarbonisation will have gained an increased confidence from the wider Glasgow proceedings.
Arguing that doing good is also going to make good business sense is becoming slightly easier.
"A glass half full and half empty"
The COP26 delivered a mixed bag of outcomes – insufficient for some, solid progress for others.
US President Joe Biden, French President Emanuel Macron and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen were among many heads of state who attended the opening plenary.
Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi stood up for what he believes are realistic goals for his country but only in 2070; for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, this was most probably her last COP attendance, having chaired the first one in Berlin 26 years ago.
Russian President Vladimir Putin totally snubbed the meeting so did his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, even though China signed a joint climate change declaration with the United States.
Some 105 countries signed the Global Methane Pledge to reduce emissions of methane gas, which is far nastier that CO2, by 30 per cent by 2030.
However, Australia, China, India and Russia did not sign.
On the glass half-full side, significant progress was made to reach a global agreement to eliminate deforestation also by 2030. The EU will lead the way.
For the very first time, the need to “… accelerate the efforts towards the phase-out of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies …” was explicitly mentioned.
A significant brouhaha ensued after 'phase-out' was replaced with 'phase-down' shortly before the final document was to be signed and, apparently, without proper transparent consultation.
This last-minute change significantly enhanced the visibility of the coal reduction wording which might otherwise have been lost at the end of a long sentence under item 36 of the Mitigation section (IV).1
The glass is almost empty when it comes to a carbon pricing mechanism. It is broadly agreed that significant emissions reductions require that the use of more emissions intensive technologies must be made more expensive than less intensive ones. However, there still was no agreement as to how this can be done while avoiding significant market distortions between regions.
Carbon taxes are broadly resisted by populations at large. Carbon prices on cap-and-trade markets are too volatile to provide the predictable investment environments required for long-term industry engagement. A universal and fully redistributed carbon fee – not a tax – warrants serious consideration during upcoming COPs.2
