Well, COP 26 is (now ‘was’)

underway in Glasgow (Nov/Dec 2021).

BUT

Will it amount to a good COP

OR

Just another ‘Cop- Out‘ ???

[NB. to ‘Cop-Out‘ of / on something means not to do it justice, to quit on it when you could and should have done more and better]

Well, over the first few days of week one heading towards week 2, these are just some of the high(or low)lights. In fact some notable things were happening BEFORE the event even started!

• Considerable lobbying efforts before the COP events by those (inter alia: Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia) wanting to expunge key phrases etc from scientific reports that had already been written and presented, so that certain countries, companies and commercial interests could avoid having to comply with the CO2 reductions the rest of the world is determined to set in law to keep global temperature rise under 2°C.

• The President of Turkey apparently refused to come to Glasgow to attend the COP on the grounds that he was not offered the same security arrangements as the President of the USA.  Pretty convenient excuse for absence as he would have had to have been on the receiving end of considerable criticism and pressure as Turkey is one of the world’s lowest performing countries in terms of addressing Climate Change.
  • The Climate Action Tracker calls Turkey’s performance ‘CRITICALLY INSUFFICIENT‘ and on a par with the likes of Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam at the bottom of its world ‘league table‘ for introducing measures to combat climate change.
  • The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) has evaluated 58 Countries’ performance and lists Turkey as in 42nd place in the ranking list. [Before we get too negative about Turkey, you’d better see who the CCPI puts in last place: the good old US of A!]

• Bill Gates’ Financing the Clean Industrial Revolution’ White Paper which he delivered just before COP26 as a Thinkpiece’ to stimulate discussion.  It is worth a read being positive and practical and by no means impenetrable.

• David Attenborough, the world-renowned, nature film-maker and broadcaster, opened the event with an impassioned speech about the ability of human will and determination to make reality out of hope.  Do watch this speech. It is only short, but so well crafted and delivered without autocue that one can scarcely believe a 95 year old could have done it.  They say: ‘Cometh the Hour – Cometh the Man‘….. well Churchill, DeGaulle and Roosevelt were the men of the moment in WW2 – it seems to me, perhaps, that all of Attenborough’s life was gathering and preparing him for this one, singular moment.  Strange to think that so much of the same ‘weight‘ of hope and expectation is being shouldered by one so old (Attenborough) and one so young (Greta Thunberg).

• How to keep up with daily events at COP 26.
  • Look at the official site’s COP 26 Outcomes Pages
  • BBC News site for as-it-happens COP 26 developments
  • BBC News ‘Climate‘ tab/sub-site

• At the beginning of Week Two:
  • The big story is that, according to the Global Witness organisation Pro Fossil-Fuels delegates to COP 26 outnumber the largest country delegation. The author notes that two countries have actually incorporated fuel-lobby representatives within their own national delegations! The BBC story also notes that there are calls for industry/interest lobbies to be banned in future, citing the example of the WHO and its ineffectiveness against the tobacco lobby until lobbyists were finally excluded from events, discussions and influence over decisions.
  • Finally a commitment to more thorough coverage of Sustainability within education!  Long overdue in my view!  From the COP 26 Educational Ministers’ Conclusions on 5th November (inter alia):
    • Point 2.  We commit to the integration of sustainability and climate change in formal education systems, including as core curriculum components, in guidelines, teacher training, examination standards and at multiple levels through institutions.  (my highlight: TJ)
      
    • Point 3.  We similarly commit to the integration of sustainability and climate change in professional training, public awareness and information activities, and other areas of non-formal and informal learning. We consider it crucial to support out of school activities geared towards sustainability.  (my highlight: TJ)
    • NB. Presently, as I understand it, here in France, sustainability is all but invisible in the school curriculum as it is to be delivered ‘transversally‘ under the heading of other subjects like History, Economics, Geography etc and it is left up to the student to piece it all together… but there is no highly-weighted (High CoEff) compulsory unit (like Maths or French) throughout school to send the message that this subject is most definately worth concentrating on.   Will the Ed Nat see the need to change?  It will mean training a new cadre of teachers and slimming down other units’ hours allocations to make room for it.  The first will cost and the second will be a battle royal against teachers and their lobbies and unions!
  • Greta Thunberg brands COP 26 as a failure to do what is needed. This BBC article cites her as stating:« It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure. It should be obvious that we cannot solve a crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place. »   I guess she will be thinking of the ‘fudge’ of Carbon Trading and the ‘half-way-house‘ that is represented by Net Zero amongst other things.
    
  • According to the Climate Action Tracker as reported upon the BBC,  even with all the commitments made so far at COP26 (Wednesday Week Two), the world could well be heading for 2.4C+ temperature increase by the end of the century.     Climate Action Tracker 2.4°C report.  Seems very much to support Greta Thunberg’s assertion that COP 26 is already a failure…. (bullet point above).

• If you get lost in all the terminology, then you will bless CNN and its ‘idiots guide’ which you will find HERE.

.

COP 26 Final Communiqué & Outcomes

Have a read at that final link: IES and ESS Master’s students should be downloading it for intensive personal use!

Up until the final scheduled day, things were perhaps even going a little better than expected, with the reasonably rapid phasing OUT of fossil fuel burning appearing to have been broadly agreed across the board, but with the final communiqué being written, China and India (no doubt with other fossil-fuel economies hanging onto their skirts) refused point-blank to sign up to it UNLESS the ‘Phase Out‘ wording were changed to ‘Phase Down‘.   Now that is what I call a really dramatic ‘four-letter word‘!   That seems to be THE major overall disappointment, along with the righteous indignation of nations hardest hit by climate change at the limited amount of compensatory financing they were going to receive from the richer nations who suffer less but create more global warming pollution.  The issue of ‘fairness’ still seems to be the issue that we just haven’t grasped.

COP our COP-OUT (Or COP-DOWN?!?): your call!