COP26 - All Eyes on Glasgow
What we need to do to ensure COP26 ends with action, not promises
Let’s be real—2020 was not the year anyone expected. The pandemic hit us all hard, and people’s jobs, holidays and plans were cancelled. There were many things that people expected 2020 to be, and one of those was the “year of climate action.” And while that didn’t exactly pan out the way people had hoped, could 2021 be that year—the year we’ve all been waiting for, the year where governments and corporations are held accountable and radical action is taken to combat the climate crisis? Many environmental groups are hopeful that it could be, but if the world’s only solution is COP26, they might be disappointed.
Illustration by: Alicia Hayden
Wait... hold up. What is COP26? Well, let me explain. There might be a few bits of political jargon dropped into this article, so I thought I’d break it down for you quickly and, to do that, we’ll need to take a little trip to the ‘90s.
We’re in Rio de Janeiro. It’s 1992. A lot of people have been quite worried about the global warming problem, so the UN is gathering up a lot of countries, and out of that first meeting, “The Earth Summit,” the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCC) is born. Every year, the UNFCC hosts an important conference with its member states (currently 196 countries) called the “Conference of the Parties,” or COP.
Now fast forward to 2015, and the UNFCC members all sign the Paris Agreement at COP21. It’s a pretty big deal. All the other COPs haven’t been able to come to an agreement everyone was happy with, but all 196 member states that sign this agreement and there is the promise of a better tomorrow...right?
Well, kind of. In layman’s terms, the Paris Agreement holds all countries to aim for an absolute maximum 2°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, and ideally to pursue efforts to limit the temperate increase to 1.5°C.
There’s a lot more in it of course, but this is the most important takeaway. Unfortunately, this is literally the bare minimum governments can do—even if the global average temperature is limited to 1.5°C, the world will likely go through some pretty catastrophic climate events (some of which are already playing out today, at only 1.1 °C of warming).
It’s been five years since the signing of the Paris Agreement. The UK was set to host COP26 in Glasgow last year, but had to postpone it (due, of course, to the pandemic) to November of this year.
For many, COP26 is a beacon of light. There are environmental campaigners who see this as one of our last great opportunities to provide firm solutions to the climate emergency, and to make sure governments hold true to their countless promises. Groups are working hard to get voices from the Global South represented at the COP and they are pushing to seek accreditation for MAPA (Most Affected People and Areas) youth. There are activists all over the world fighting on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and they need their voices amplified on a global stage. Could that stage be provided by COP26?
There are countries which are doing exceptionally well in tackling the climate crisis. Bhutan is one the of the states that originally signed the Paris Agreement five years ago and, in terms of reducing their carbon emissions, they’ve gone from strength to strength. Yes, it is a small country. But that didn’t stop it originally having one of the most ambitious emission reduction targets at Paris in 2015. And remarkably, Bhutan is the only nation on Earth that is actually carbon negative.
Carbon negative, you ask? What does that mean? It means that Bhutan has so many trees (roughly 70% of the country!) that the country, on average, absorbs more CO2 than it produces. Bhutan also has a record of basing their political designs on an index of GNH—Gross National Happiness—and discarding exponential economic growth and GDP as their main focus.
Costa Rica is seen as another world leader in tackling this crisis—it has set goals of neutralising carbon emissions this year by reducing their fossil fuel use and compensating with reforestation projects—an incredible feat.
Carbon neutrality is a brilliant goal, and countries like Bhutan and Costa Rica are forging a path that many other countries have the opportunity to follow. But the rest of the world doesn’t seem to be taking the hint.
The proud host of this year’s UN climate change conference, the United Kingdom, has been consistently vague in their climate pledges. The most widely reported shift in attitude from the government towards solving the climate crisis came in the summer of 2019, with then-Prime Minister Theresa May signing into law the UK’s target of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
2019 was a year full of radical climate justice action in the UK, from the Extinction Rebellion protests to the widespread school strikes. The mounting pressure from an angry and frustrated younger generation (and their allies of all ages) eventually made the PM promise to do better.
But here’s the thing: these are only promises.
Over the last five years, we’ve seen a succession of prime ministers spout these promises of strong action against the escalating climate and ecological emergencies. But have they lived up to those promises? Well, no. Many would argue they have gone in the complete opposite direction.
The UK has kept up public appearances on tackling climate change—we’ve had some major conservation wins such as beaver reintroduction, and we’re the fastest country to decarbonise out of the so-called “developed” nations, with carbon emissions down by 44%, according to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). But, all too often, if you look hard enough, these are just public appearances.
Unfortunately, events like COP, and in fact, almost all climate change conferences are largely symbolic. If you look back across the last 29 years to The Earth Summit in 1992, you will see that, where pledges to reduce CO2 emissions were taken, almost no real action followed.
The UK government has a habit of throwing around empty promises, and using “green" initiatives, wildlife conservation wins and a certain rapidly approaching UN Climate Change conference to distract everyone from its huge environmental failings. Despite the endless promises made, the government continues to show its disregard for planning their own targets to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050—most recently in the form of ignoring plans to build a new deep coking coal mine in West Cumbria. The government has previously said that it does not want to intervene in Cumbria Council’s decision to let the mine go ahead, saying it is a local council decision.
Echoing the sentiment of many environmentalists, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, John Sauven, said: "It’s extraordinary that anyone still believes burning coal is only a local issue and has no global impacts. It certainly isn’t setting the global leadership on climate that the prime minister says he's aspiring to.”
While the final decision has been put on hold amid mounting pressure, many ministers have been vocally supportive of the mine. And Alok Shama, the Government president of COP26, has even been urged to tender his resignation if he can’t convince Boris Johnson to take action on this issue.
This isn’t an isolated incident. From the widely criticised HS2 railway project to the A30 Expressway expansion in Cornwall, to the proposal of a power station built on the edge of one of Europe’s most important nature reserves, the UK government consistently backslides on its promises quicker than it can make them.
While I will always maintain that individual lifestyle change and action will not solve this crisis, there are various things you can do to make sure the government knows that we need them to act now.
The new Climate Census Campaign is a way you can push politicians towards the right direction in a way that is safe in these unprecedented times. Even without a global pandemic, traditional forms of activism aren’t available to everyone, and online campaigns like this are a great way to safely take action. Head to https://climatecensus.uk/ to get involved!
I’d like to be positive about all this. There have been a fair few wildlife conservation and environmental wins in the UK in 2020/2021, there are many campaigns like Climate Census and more that are doing brilliant work. But it is a sad truth that when even the UN Climate Conferences rarely achieve anything, it’s very hard to be positive.
Looking forward to this historic event, I think it’s clear that many leaders have an opportunity this year to take radical action on climate change. With President Joe Biden and his (mostly) positive environmental policy-making replacing the disastrous last four years of the Trump administration in the United States, some action may well be taken this year.
But how many countries will take real action, and how many will continue with their greenwashing and empty promises?
We need to be hopeful. We need to be optimistic. But that hope needs to be backed up by our frustrations at the shortcomings of our government and the systems that are failing us in the face of existential threat. We must remain empowered by hope, but fuelled by the urgent need for action to stop the climate crisis in its tracks.
There is no single solution to the climate crisis. There is no single individual change that we can make in our lives to solve ecological emergency. We need governments to enact effective and deliberate environmental policy, and we need it now.
Governments around the world continue to see the climate action as a burden. This thinking needs to change. Though daunting, climate action is an opportunity—to steer societies in greener, cleaner and fairer direction, and to bring communities together with the common to protect and value the future.
In the run up to COP26, all eyes must be on those with the power to enact these real and lasting changes. We must demand action, and no more empty pledges.
GEORGE Steedman Jones
George is a first year Marine and Natural History Student at Falmouth University, who tells stories of nature and conservation through a variety of mediums. While conservation photography is his main passion, he has loved writing from a young age and pursued nature writing as a form of science communication alongside his photography over the last year. An environmentalist and conservation volunteer, he has been passionate about the natural world, wildlife and environmental issues throughout his life, fuelled by a childhood spent in nature.
You can find him on Instagram @george_brynmor