Talk is Cheap. So is Life.


The COP 26 climate summit was supposed to catapult the 2015 Paris climate accord into reality. It was called the Last Chance Saloon in recognition that the time to take effective action has very nearly run out. Unlike the previous 25 climate summits this one would succeed where all the others had failed.  Unfortunately that was wishful thinking.

The time may indeed be running out but we're far from close to a meaningful deal, one that prescribes solutions commensurate to what is a genuinely existential threat.

As Gwynne Dyer wrote on the eve of the summit opening, there was no way our leaders were going to commit to solving this emergency.

Why would a conference full of highly educated, well informed and mostly well intentioned people behave like this?

They’re not wicked people, and almost all of them know the truth. They just cannot afford to get too far ahead of the people they lead. A majority of citizens in almost every country worry about global heating, but dramatic change isn’t possible because it hasn’t reached their pain threshold yet. 

David Suzuki skipped the summit altogether. An extinction event doesn't rise to the level of a garden-variety pandemic.

So far at this year's summit, world leaders have pledged a variety of climate measures, including working to curb deforestation and methane emissions. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for a global carbon tax, which he says would dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels.

The announcements didn't carry much weight for Suzuki, who believes the pledges don't go far enough.

"We've already had 25 meetings. The urgency now is perceptible."

Despite his pessimism about the conference, he did see a glimmer of climate hope in other contexts, including the rapid global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"When COVID-19 hit, suddenly, tens of billions of dollars were being spent by the government. And my question was, where the hell did all this money come from? Money wasn't an issue," he said.

The Washington Post reports that support among Americans for climate action has stalled despite the impacts experienced in recent years. Worst of all, among Republicans support has slumped, something that portends real problems if the Republicans capture the Senate and/or the House in next year's mid-terms or if Trump gets the White House back in 2024.

As the Glasgow summit wraps up, advocacy groups are calling COP 26 a failure, "a death sentence for millions."

Climate justice advocates including the campaign group Corporate Accountability expressed outrage at the "lack of equity, urgency, and ambition by world 'leaders' and wealthy nations."

As Common Dreams reported Friday, the draft text that was presented the day the summit had been scheduled to end was widely condemned for weak language regarding the phasing out of coal power and fossil fuel subsidies.

"The deal on the table is a death sentence for millions of those on the frontlines," the group added.

Campaigners condemned the leaders' insistence on including language that leaves the door open for "techno-fixes" and "false solutions" like carbon capture technology.

The draft decision "is massively killing the Paris agreement," said Meena Raman of Third World Network and Friends of the Earth Malaysia. "No finance, no technology transfer, no adaptation, no loss and damage."

Even as COP 26 drew to a close negotiations continued, much of it a matter of splitting hairs and settling on just the right weasel words.

The latest draft proposal from the Cop26 chair, released soon after 7am on Friday in Glasgow, calls on countries to accelerate “the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels.”

A previous version on Wednesday had called on countries to “accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuel.”

Show us the money, honey.

Meanwhile, a $100 billion annual funding pledge made by wealthy countries, with the aim of helping developing nations mitigate the climate crisis, is now scheduled to be delivered starting in 2023—three years late.

The draft text noted "with deep regret" the failure to provide the funding, and called for a doubling of funds by 2025, but leaders have not reached an agreement on providing new financing to help with the damage that has already been done. The text included language calling only for a "technical assistance facility" to aid countries that have suffered losses and damages.

"The wealthiest have said that their coffers are empty, treating climate finance as if it were some loose change to be found down the back of the sofa," said Asad Rehman of War on Want. "In 2021, this new text may have plenty of warm words to acknowledge and 'urge' when what we really needed was will, and what we needed when your house is on fire. And for those trapped in that fire, not for us to acknowledge that there is a fire or that we should ring the fire brigade, but to actually act."

The promise of COP 26 has not been met. Oh well, maybe 27th time lucky, eh?





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