For the last two weeks, the COP26 conference has dominated headlines. This is unsurprising, as the conference had been hyped for more than a year as the next in a hallowed sequence of action against climate change: Kyoto, Paris, Glasgow. Indeed, the conference has been widely labeled as the ‘last chance’ to negotiate the deals on emissions and environmental policy necessary to keep the earth below 1.5°c of warming by the end of the century.
There have been some promising, optimism-inducing signs, including a major deal on reducing methane emissions by 30%, a pledge by 137 countries to end deforestation, and a surprising deal between the U.S and China.
But at the time of this writing, there is still no overall climate agreement in place, many issues remain unresolved (in particular reparations to poorer countries and specific international implementation mechanisms for the policies already in place), and the amount of money on the table is sparse.
As a result, the coverage surrounding COP26 has been decidedly mixed. Small rays of progress and agreement are usually overshadowed by vagary, distant deadlines, and disappointing funding. This, too, is unsurprising. What else should we have expected?
Trump may not be president anymore, and the UN may have better, more specific data about how we’re all doomed, but this is hardly a harmonious time for global cooperation and mutual trust. COVID is still raging in much of the world, and international efforts to ensure universal vaccination access have mostly failed. U.S-China relations remain tense. And as my piece last week noted, plenty is still going wrong around the world.
Furthermore, there is no other path to broad international agreement than messy negotiation, compromise, and imperfect promises. To expect uniformity and specific legalistic language from 100+ countries is to misunderstand how the international arena (and people in general) work. Go back to the days just before Paris 2015, or Kyoto 1997, read some of the coverage at the time; negotiations were hardly clean and easy, and many at the time were left deeply skeptical of the long-term prospects of the subsequent agreements.
The fact is that powerful governments will never bind themselves to economic and social policies decades into the future that their own citizens did not vote for (or that their own leaders did not craft).
COP26 was never going to be our salvation.
Still, it is understandable that some react to all the sunlight and shadow by throwing up their arms in frustration, asking the heavens: what is the point of all these distant goals?
COP26 was never going to be our salvation.
I certainly couldn’t help but wonder about the limits of internationalism and multilateralism when it comes to something to matters like a country's energy supply, budget, and economic growth. My wondering eventually coalesced around a single question: what is the value of a global promise?
With what we’ve seen so far, it certainly isn’t the driving force of global action; that honor probably goes to growing overall awareness and building internal pressures, brought on by an increasingly vocal scientific community and evermore fires, droughts, and floods. Ultimately, the pressure to keep the promise won’t come from more internationalism either, but from those same domestic political calculations that led to the promises being made in the first place.
Moreover, with what we’ve seen so far, promises made, like that to funnel $100 billion to poorer countries by 2020 to combat climate, are not necessarily promises kept.
Sometimes, perhaps, the value of a promise is more ephemeral. It is not a guarantee of material change, but merely an admission of attention, a confession that a promise should be made. And while this is not necessarily a small thing, it is hardly the kind of sign to satisfy the Greta Thunberg generation.
COP26 was a critical moment, even an inflection point in some ways (to borrow Biden’s favorite turn of phrase). It was a chance to take stock, make tough choices, and try to strike the right tone for what is sure to be a tumultuous decade.
But despite what COP26 organizers say, this is not the last chance to save the world and avoid 1.5°c warming. I understand why they say it; they feel like they have to in order to communicate the gravity of the environmental catastrophe before us. But it isn’t true. For one, it is a notoriously tricky business trying to make multi-decade extrapolations without accounting for political, social, and technological changes. And until the Sun swallows the Earth, we can always, and should always, do more to maintain environmental balance.
To this end, the real battle continues to rage. It rages in Washington (Democrats I’m looking at you), and Brussels, and Delhi, and Beijing, and every other major capital. That’s where the real money will or won’t get spent. That’s where norms, and expectations and promises become cold hard action. And that’s why Obama called on young people everywhere to keep agitating for change and voting for politicians that actually deliver legislation. As the former president put it, “don’t think you can ignore politics.”
Certainly, the value of global promises will remain ephemeral until national politicians can actually feel the fire.
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