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The global stage is set for what may be one of the most momentous gatherings in human history. Perhaps that’s too dramatic for what after all will be an event organized by a bloated bureaucracy, the United Nations and its cumbersome infrastructure, for the 26th conference of the parties (COP-26) that began nearly 30 years ago. Among the more than 100 heads of state who will participate are President Joe Biden, French Premier Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis and Queen Elizabeth. World leaders from 197 countries will be engulfed by an estimated 20,000 world citizens and reporters—including two representing Corrales Comment— and an abundance of celebrities including Greta Thunberg, Al Gore and Sir David Attenborough, to name but a few.
COP-26 will open at the Scottish Event Center in Glasgow on October 31 and get down to work nearly around the clock until November 12. Groundwork has been laid for months, especially by President Biden’s special diplomat John  Kerry, the single most important driver for the 2015 Paris climate change accord. (See Corrales Comment’s “Dispatch No. 10 from Paris at www.corralescomment.com.)
COP diplomats, negotiators and scientists have not convened for the past two years due to the coronavirus pandemic;Â extraordinary precautions are being taken to avoid what could easily become a global COVID-19 super-spreader event in Glasgow. The fact that it is happening at all is stark testimony to a perceived emergency.
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a dire warning this summer that declared a “code red for humanity†if governments cannot take bold action quickly to address the now-evident climate crisis.
(See Corrales Comment’s verbatim text of the report’s summary for policy makers starting in the August 21, 2021 issue.)
A cynical view of the decision to hold COP-26 despite health threats might suggest Kerry and other activists want to move ahead now to extract governments’ commitments, taking advantage of climate calamities that occurred over the past year. Wildfires, droughts, flooding and other disasters may not be as gripping two or three years from now, given natural variability.
Regardless whether climate-related disasters ebb or surge in the near future, what’s at stake in Glasgow will remain consistent. To avoid a 1.5 degree centigrade rise in global warming compared to pre-industrial levels, emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases must be net-zero by 2050.
What kinds of concrete actions can be taken to achieve that before irreversible damage befalls life on earth will be key in Glasgow.
Although the urgency is now more clearly perceived than during the 2015 COP-21 Paris Accord deliberations, the basic issues remain:
- What policies or disincentives can be imposed to halt build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
- What policies or incentives can be implemented to substitute renewable energy for fossil fuel use?
- What commitments can be extracted to slow or halt releases of other potent greenhouse gases, such as methane, to the atmosphere?
- How can leverage be used to achieve non-governmental constraints, such as policies of the World Bank and financial institutions around the world, to phase out fossil fuels and phase in renewables?
- How should victims of climate change and global warming be compensated for losses, especially if those nations and peoples are least responsible for those changes?
- What can be done now, and in the near future, to help nations and communities become more resilient in confronting those changes?
Those issues and policy choices were clearly established in the Paris Accord and international agreements leading up to it over the past 30 years.
To the dismay of many, the COP-21 agreement in 2015 did not include any mandatory reductions in carbon emissions by signatories to the accord. Nations only agreed to state their intentions to take steps to control activities that would increase the likelihood of climate disasters.
The primary product of the Paris Accord was agreement that each country would set down a marker for an “intended nationally determined contribution†to the international goal of holding down global warming.
The fact that governments were not to be held accountable for assuring that emissions decreased was considered a significant failure of COP-21. In reality, no agreement at all would have been achieved if negotiators, such as John Kerry, had insisted on a binding treaty.
Instead, after stating an intention, governments were to be encouraged over coming years to “increase their ambition,†presumably raising their “nationally determined contribution†to the global effort.
At COP-26, environmental groups and climate militants are sure to demand more teeth, with terms more closely resembling a treaty. That outcome is unlikely in Glasgow, although the process leading to that could begin.