The Glasgow COP26 Climate Summit is over. Unfortunately, it met my expectations. Expecting politicians to gather and come up with the dramatic action the warming world requires appears to be a delusion. The one-word change in a declaration on coal usage tells you all you need to know. "The conference ended on a sour note when delegates from China and India proposed a last-minute change to crucial text around moving away from coal, saying they would agree only to “phase-down unabated coal,” rather than “phase out.”
Some sorry outcomes.
- Climate experts state that the COP26 actions will shave 0.1°C off. “The 1.5C goal was already on life support before Glasgow and now it’s about time to declare it dead,” Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheim . “There is no plausible way to limit warming to 1.5 or even 2 [degrees] if coal is not phased out ... and as rapidly as possible, along with oil and gas,” Jon Sterman, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
- The United Nations calculated that to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, countries need to cut their emissions in half by 2030. Emissions are now going up, not down, by about 14% since 2010, United Nations climate chief Patricia Espinosa said.
The final agreement at COP26 did recognize the scientific reality that putting the brakes on climate change will require nations to speed efforts to cut emissions soon, rather than merely commit to far off “net zero” targets.
So the world was asking these questions of the Glasgow conference:
- Can nations muster the political will to deliver on the soaring rhetoric that marked the summit’s start?
- Can COP26 mark the start of a “decisive” decade to turn the tide on global warming?
- Can the lurching progress of these annual conferences keep pace with the problem they were designed to solve?
Grade: F or D- if you're feeling generous.
And here's a couple further depressing items end to this post.
- Shortly upon the close of COP26, the US Government is proceeding with the largest offshore oil & gas leasing in history.
- White House negotiators and a group of senators struck a deal on a bipartisan infrastructure agreement on Thursday that slashes measures to combat climate change
We must demand more from our leaders. We are betraying our grandchildren.
Further reading: There Is No Planet B
Addenda: December 2021. The Build Back Better bill, containing ~$500B towards climate initiatives is dead, with a single senator blocking its passage. American leadership in the climate crisis is non-existent.
Copyright © 2021 Dave Hoplin
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