Welcome to the final week of our 9-week focus on climate action in which we provide encouragement and seek to inspire action within all of the 22 Methodist Churches in the Ipswich area.
The 9-week series has been building awareness on the important issues facing the planet because of climate change, in anticipation of COP26, the summit of global leaders seeking to reach agreement on the urgent actions everyone needs to take in order to keep the planet warming below the 1.5o C thershold which scientists have declared is the point of no return. The summit begins on 1st November 2021 in Glasgow.
This Week’s Focus
This week the subject is Global Leadership and COP26. It focuses on the summit itself, the history leading up to this summit, and some of the geopolitics which the leaders will be facing up to, as they seek to find a shared solution.
What is COP26 and why is it important?
COP26 is the 26th meeting of the Conference of the Parties.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an agreement between 197 countries under the auspices of the UN committing those countries to actions which will address the climate crisis. The Conference of the Parties (COP) was established as the ultimate decision-making body with authority to oversee the agreements made by the UNFCCC. It can only achieve its purpose when the world leaders are the ones authorising the decisions and committing to the actions. COP1 was born in Berlin in 1995.
The Paris Agreement in 2015 (COP21) introduced legally binding commitments with a five year cycle intensifying the commitments, making COP26, the first step of tightening the screw on actions.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a gathering of experts with responsibility to gather, assess and interpret the evidence which the UNFCCC will use as the basis for the negotiations on which the Community of Partners will reach their agreed decisions. The IPCC published its full assessment report (AR6) in August 2021 providing the essential evidence base on which the world leader negotiations would take place in Glasgow. The report provided the strongest evidence to date that climate change was a direct result of human activity, and that it now posed greater dangers than previously accepted.
under license CC BY 2.0
Public focus brought to climate change in the intervening years, plus the IPCC report and learning from the global pandemic has placed COP26 in even sharper public spotlight than its predecessors. Expectations of meaningful decisions and action are high.
The COP26 conference will be attended by more than 25 000 people – slightly fewer than recent COP events because of pandemic restrictions and resulting higher costs. Three distinct groups of people make up this number.
The negotiating teams, with their scientists, economists and political advisors from the 197 Partner nations will be the centre of attention, supporting their heads of state – the majority of whom are likely to attend in person.
Exhibitors and businesses wanting to demonstrate their commitment and showcase their solutions that can address the climate crisis, who will also be seeking support for their ideas and technologies.
Lobby groups and influencers who are seeking to raise awareness and hold leaders to account for their own particular interests – some of whom will be presenting the case for their vested interests, whilst others will be more altruistic in nature. Faith groups, voluntary sector organisations and NGOs will have important platforms.
As host country, the UK will be in the spotlight for the leadership, commitment to the whole climate agenda as measured by tangible pro-environment actions, and especially for ensuring final agreements are substantial and binding.
photo by David Gray under licnesed CC BY 2.0
Boris Johnson has summarised the goals as coal, cars, cash and trees. The devil is always in the detail at summits of this nature, but the simplicity and clarity of message is fundamental in uniting leaders behind the agenda to reach agreement:
- withdraw from coal for generating electricity and shift onto renewables;
- shift from reliance on internal combustion engine onto electric vehicles;
- raise the $100bn funds the whole world needs, especially the developing world – to invest in tackling climate change
- plant hundreds of millions, if not trillions of trees around the world.
What has led up to COP26?
The first World Climate Conference took place in 1979 as a gathering of scientists wanting to explore whether climate change might affect human activity. With limited understanding or agreement, they issued a declaration calling on world governments to “foresee and prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity”. They also supported the establishment of a World Climate Programme under joint leadership of the World Meteorological Office. The UN Environment programme and the International Council of Scientific Unions.
The declaration demonstrates how little was understood, an eagerness for exploration of the ideas, and an underlying anxiety about the political ramifications.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988, and they issued their first report in 1990 to be considered at the second World Climate Conferenc. It led to a call to establish a global treaty. The famous Earth Summit in Rio took place in 1992, gathering commitment from nations willing to sign up to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which was launched in 1994. The Conference of the Parties was established as the ultimate decision making body to oversee the Framework Convention. It met for the first timne (COP1) in Berlin in 1995.
The next significant event was held in Kyoto in 1997 (COP3), leading to the Kyoto protocol which committed industrialised countries to limit their production of greenhouse gases to self-policed agreed individual targets. The complexity of geopolitics meant that the Kyoto protocol took a further 8 years to bring into force.
The fourth report from the IPCC was released in 2007 at COP13. Despite annual meetings reaching low-key accords, the next significant milestone was in 2015 at COP21 in Paris. This was a legally binding agreement to limit global warming to 2o C above preindustrial levels. A five year cycle of intensifying actions was established in the Paris Agreement, placing the spotlight on COP26 in Glasgow in 2020. The global pandemic led to deferral of the conference into 2021, whilst retaining the designation of COP26.
The IPCC released a special report in 2018 demonstrating that warming needed to be kept below 1.5oC, but the COP24 summit in Poland failed to accept responsibility for the necessary actions.
The 2019 meeting in Madrid (COP25) was under greater pressure than previous events, given the high profile achieved by Greta Thunberg and other activists. That conference too failed to reach any conclusive agreement placing even greater significance on COP26.
The sixth IPCC report published in August 2021 demonstrated more clearly than ever before that climate change was no longer open to dispute and posed a significant threat demanding urgent attention.
What did the experts say in the IPCC Report?
The report demonstrated that warming of 1.1o C had already occurred in the industrial era and that the 1.5o C threshold was likely to be exceeded in the next 20 years. Warming is occurring faster than predicted, and every region of the planet is facing increasing change with areas of heat extreme surpassing critical thresholds for agriculture and health. Other headline changes were summarised:
- water cycle intensifying, bringing intense rainfall, floods and droughts;
- rainfall patterns are changing, with decreased precipitation in tropical regions but increased in high latitudes;
- coastal areas will be subjected to sea level rise and more extreme flooding and storms;
- loss of permafrost, melting of glaciers and loss of sea ice;
- reduced oxygenation and more acidification of warmer oceans, affecting marine ecosystems;
- cities will experience effects of climate change that are amplified.
What next for Climate Leadership?
197 countries are party to the COP26 negotiations seeking to reach agreement with sufficient clarity and accountability to respond positively to the climate crisis. Each one will have their own national and political priorities and contexts, with specific red lines against their MUST-Do list, as well as their aspirations. Those with a less powerful voice will unite in power blocs with shared agendas, such as the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) group comprising 38 states, representing less than 1% of the global population, all of whom are in the front line of climate change impact.
Previous COP meetings have repeatedly struggled to meet expectations with firm action within the timescale demands of Climate Change. Invariably they have watered down agreements in the face of powerful vested interests.
is president of COP26- official DFID photograph under license CC BY 2.0
Leaders at COP26 will be placed under more pressure than previous summits to agree to decisive actions. Previous COP meetings have always been faced with the option to delay, because consequences were not immediate and leaders dislike taking painful and potentially unpopular decisions. Their experience of the Covid pandemic should prove helpful in breaking log-jams. They know that unprecedented levels of innovation and change, however unpopular, have been achieved in combatting the pandemic – actions over which they had limited choices.
Undoubtedly, the tough negotiations at COP26 will result in compromises and unpopular decision which will simultaneously be described as too aggressive and too weak.
Whatever those outcomes, all leaders will leave the conference and be placed under pressure to deviate from those agreements in their own national interest. High levels of popularism and nationalism will intensify these pressures to compromise after the event. They will need clear support from all parties for the difficult decisions they have taken, even if they are not totally aligned with the sought after ideals.
After the conclusion of COP26, leaders must be held to account to deliver on their commitments, but they also need strong support and followership to defend them against further resistance and opposition.
The Doomsday Clock was first established in 1947 by atomic scientists anxious about the nuclear arms race threatening the world’s future. It gives a simple interpretation of how much the world is under threat from various avenues. The 24 hours symbolises the span of human civilisation. In 1947, they determined that the clock was at 7 minutes to midnight. The scientists revisit the clock each year. As the threat increases, the clock comes closer to midnight. With the cold war looming, the clock advanced to 2 minutes to midnight in 1953 but has swung back and forth since then, reaching out as far as 17 minutes with promising international relations in 1991. Since then it has crept closer to midnight, reaching 5 minutes before in 2012, then slowly creeping closer. 2020 marked the first time the clock has ever dipped below 2 minutes, reaching just 100 seconds – such is the current climate of political nationalism, pandmemc and climate change converging. The clock is a stark reminder of the urgency with which political leaders need to reach shared goals and commitments.
What Can We Do?
- support campaigns and raise your voice in favour of positive and urgent action
- ensure leaders know they have your support and understanding when they need to take difficult and potentially costly/ painful decisions;
- continue learning about the issues involved with climate change and continue reviewing and taking more personal actions to reduce your own impact;
- share your concerns, ideas and actions with others, so that you have a positive influence on your own networks, colleagues, communities and friends;
- be a leader and ambassador within your sphere of influence;
- be confident and challenge with knowledge and authority to suppress denial
- encourage new technologies, especially where they enable developing nations to skip technology generations;
- stand behind and support difficult decisions which will have positive impact against climate-change, even when they are not the ones you would have preferred.
Learn More
- official COP26 information
- background history to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
- introduction to (COP) the Community of Partners
- read more from the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Partnership for Climate Change (IPCC)
- read what the implications for UK are in the AR6 from IPCC
- UK Net Zero plans published for COP26
- climate change committee report on UK’s net zero action plans
World Environment Day Exemplar
On 5th June 1974, the first World Environment Day was marked. Every year since then, a host city has brought focus to an environmental topic that was particularly pertinent to them.
In 2009, Mexico City was chosen as the host city, with the theme Your planet needs you – UNite to combat climate change. There was an urgency for nations to build on the agreements on climate change made in Kyoto in 1997. World Environment Day provided an opportunity to prepare for the climate convention meeting to be held in Copenhagen (COP15) later in the year.
Read more about Mexico City and the 2009 World Enviroment Day here.
This Week’s Prayer
Pray for a successful summit, that the climate crisis may be understood; there will be the political will and global unity to commit to urgent action, that will protect even the most vulnerable.
Key Messages
- it is important to recognise and accept the IPCC AR6 report setting out the reality and impact of climate change
- the world needs meaningful commitment to net zero deadlines with urgent and decisive action by all nations;
- successful outcomes of the negotiations and implementation of the decisions made at COP26 meeting will need strong political leadership and resolve, especially from the wealthy nations;
- strong followership will be important to ensure leaders are supported in their drive to deliver on their commitments, and that internal resistance and barriers are removed;
- agreement and continued commitment to all the sustainable development goals will be essential to close the gap between rich and poor without slowing progress to net zero;
- wealthy nations will need to provide strong economic and political support to poorer nations to ensure continuation of their development in an environmentally sustainable way;
- a unified programme of education and communication will be important to ensure no ground is left for campaigns of denial or resistance to become firmly established.