COP26: 'This is not an all-or-nothing situation – look for progress rather than success or failure'

The Indie's Green Watch columnist, Louise Tennekoon, a member of Bishop's Stortford Climate Group, writes about environmental matters from a Bishop's Stortford perspective...

So COP26 is upon us. I had planned to write this week about my hopes for the outcome, about agreements that would keep global temperature rise below 1.5C and see the world on course to avoid the worst extremes of climate change. It’s looking increasingly unlikely that this is what we will get. Yet there are some positive things about this particular COP which stand out:

1. The USA is back at the table and back in the Paris Agreement, the international treaty on climate change adopted in 2015. Only a year ago, with Trump in the White House, this was unthinkable. Now the Biden administration is committed to transformational action (despite facing significant opposition at home). As the world’s biggest economy and second biggest polluter, this is good news.

2. Fossil fuel companies have no formal role at COP26. In the past, they have had powerful platforms at climate change negotiations, lobbying governments and sponsoring events. But not in Glasgow. Corporate sponsors are required to have net-zero goals by 2050 or sooner and ‘credible’ plans to achieve them, and oil firms including Shell and BP were excluded on this basis. In the words of Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden: "We were told that we were not welcome."

3. Civil society is mobilizing like never before. 100,000 people are expected to descend on Glasgow on Saturday (Nov 6) for a climate day of action – that’s around five people for every delegate. It will be hard for negotiators to ignore the strength of feeling on the streets, and it will be a massive opportunity for networking and connection among people demanding climate justice across the world.

4. The end of coal is on the agenda for the first time. In the past year, China, South Korea and Japan have pledged to end financing for overseas coal plants. Since they are responsible for financing around 95% of overseas coal plants, this will have a significant impact on coal use in the developing world (although China’s continued use of coal remains a serious impediment to achieving the Paris goals).

5. Leaders are starting to tell the truth about climate change. Speaking ahead of the G20 meeting in Rome last week, Boris Johnson said: "Unless we get this right... we could see our civilisation, our world, also go backwards... We could consign our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren to a life where there are not only huge movements of populations, huge migrations, but also shortages of food, shortages of water, conflict, caused by climate change. There is absolutely no question this is a reality we must face up to." This kind of stark rhetoric has not been heard before and is essential if we are to galvanise the rapid and deep action that’s needed.

In the absence of a plan to deliver the Paris Agreement, I expect campaigners to brand COP26 a failure, while politicians will attempt to label it a success. The truth is probably more nuanced than that.

Respected climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern said last week: “I agree with [the UN] and most observers that we will not close that gap [between emissions pledges and scientific advice] completely. But we should hope for good progress in closing that gap and we should hope for mechanisms and ways forward on how we close that gap further between now and 2025. That’s the way we should think – a language of success or failure doesn’t seem to me to be very helpful.”

Although COP26 is being billed as ‘the last chance to save the planet’, it's important to remember that this is not an all-or-nothing situation. It’s not ‘we get a plan for 1.5C or we go home’. Every tonne of greenhouse gas avoided matters, every fraction of every degree is worth fighting for. As Greta Thunberg said on Sunday: "It is never too late to do as much as we can."

So look for subtleties in between success and failure. Look for progress on phasing out coal, on climate finance to poorer countries and on improving the protection of forests globally. Look for larger-than-anticipated promises from some countries. Look for a new timetable for countries to revisit their plans, perhaps every year.

Above all, hold the outcome with optimism. When Christiana Figueres took over as head of the UN climate change negotiations in 2010, the process was essentially dead in the water. At her first press conference, when a journalist asked whether she thought a global agreement would ever be possible, she replied: “Not in my lifetime.”

Yet she went on to become the architect of the Paris Agreement. She explains: "I am a stubborn optimist. Nothing gets done without optimism. Have you known a breakthrough that started with pessimistic thoughts about its potential? Optimism is a choice we have to make every single day. In radical collaboration with each other, we can do this."

More than 50 people will come together "in radical collaboration" this weekend (Nov 6-7) at the Bishop’s Stortford Community Climate Gathering. The outcome of this process will be shared in this paper and online over the coming weeks.