COP26 Shows Up the Lack of Collective Leadership in the Face of a Prolonged Future Threat

The draft text for the COP26 agreement has been released and it is to climate change activists a disappointment. Those who hold political power have demonstrated their lack of will in addressing the challenge of an environment that young people and our future descendants are inheriting. Talk about an absolute botched job.

What it gets right is this:

Recognizing the science of climate change as being an important driver for actions and policy.

What it gets wrong:

Not recognizing that science should be the requisite driver in everything we do to adapt to and mitigate global warming.

What it says about ending the mining and burning of coal:

It calls for countries to phase out coal recognizing that it is the largest human activity contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.

What it doesn’t say about ending coal:

It establishes no firm dates or targets to eliminate mining of coal or using it for thermal power generation.

What it says about ending fossil fuel subsidies:

It calls for countries to stop subsidizing fossil fuel exploration and development projects.

What it doesn’t say about ending subsidies:

It establishes no firm dates or targets to make this a reality.

What it says about mean temperature rise:

The draft contains an expression of alarm and concern that we have already produced a mean increase in atmospheric temperatures of 1.1 Celsius (1.98 Fahrenheit) degrees above 1950 measurements.

What it doesn’t say about rising temperatures:

The atmospheric temperature increase doesn’t describe the variable nature of what that rise means. Remember that a mean increase of 1.1 Celsius is an averaging out of diurnal changes (highs and lows throughout day and nighttime), over land and water, over mountains and deserts, and over varying latitudes. That translates to much hotter weather in places already verging on the uninhabitable. For example, the 1.1 Celsius rise is causing record daytime high temperatures already in places like Pakistan, India, Iran, and Australia where 50 Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) is becoming more common than rare. That is a temperature halfway to the boiling point of water and is enough to make asphalt melt.

What it calls for in terms of adaptation:

It states that global warming’s impact on people and nature calls for national adaptations plans, and the urgent scaling up of actions to increase adaptive capacity and reduce vulnerability for those in areas of the planet most at risk from current and future climate change.

What it lacks in addressing adaptation:

There is no collective means to enforce contributions from the Developed World countries to finance adaptation capacity to those areas most vulnerable. What there is an urgent request to create meaningful climate financing for adaptation.

What it says about mitigation:

The goals of the Paris Climate Agreement remain, to hold mean temperature increases below 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) and pursue limiting the warmth to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

The wording calls for “meaningful and effective action” this decade including the establishment of a “work program” to measure progress by all parties with the goal to establish “rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, including reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent by 2030 relative to the 2010 level and to net-zero around mid-century.” 

It also expresses “serious concern” that submitted nationally determined contributions from nations participating in COP26 don’t come close to the above-stated goals. And it notes that some of the nations that signed the Paris Climate Agreement are derelict in not having submitted their nationally determined contributions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The wording calls for these nations to have their numbers complete before COP27 to be held in November of 2022.

What it doesn’t say about mitigation:

There is no collective series of measures to enforce any type of compliance to meet the 2.0 or 1.5 Celsius temperature thresholds as limits established in Paris back in 2015. Although a global stocktaking is expressed in wording within the COP26 draft, the process that was called for in Article 6 of the Paris agreement lacks a structure to make the planetwide effort work seamlessly. In other words, the lack of a rule book for all nations to follow means enforcement, should a country not do what it has pledged, is missing.

And finally what hasn’t been stated in the draft is the reality of where we are actually heading:

Based on the latest climate change analysis appearing in my morning newspaper today, global mean-atmospheric temperatures will rise by 2.4 Celsius (4.32 Fahrenheit) degrees by 2100. This conclusion is based on looking at the current efforts and national commitments of countries at COP26.

The analysis which was presented at the COP26 summit yesterday shows global greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030 will almost be twice as high as required to keep the 2.0 and 1.5 Celsius Paris goals within reasonable sight. Based on best-case scenarios with every nation fully implementing emission-reduction targets they have committed to, the analysis points to atmospheric warming of no less than 1.8 Celsius (3.24 Fahrenheit) degrees by 2100. But can we even manage that with so many nations negligent in making commitments, and with no rule book?