Another COP is in the books. So now what?

As the global high point of COVID-19 infections seemed to ease this past spring, the world began to exhale a sigh of relief and turn its gaze toward a resolute and impactful 26th Conference of the Parties climate negotiations in the coming winter. With no negotiations held in 2020 due to the pandemic and extreme climate events occurring more regularly and in more places, the sense of urgency to make something happen now at a COP could not have been higher.

And then, as if by force majeure, global COVID-19 infection rates began to rise again in late summer. Grand plans for an all-out event in Glasgow began to give way to more tepid expectations. Before you could say “carbon tax,” the goals for COP26 focused on holding nations to their financial commitments that were agreed upon in 2015.

Yet, two weeks of presentations, discussions, debates and negotiations went down in a bone chilling Scotland winter, even pushing beyond the scheduled close to finalize language around fossil fuels. The ultimate outcome? Not very much at all.

“We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres at the event.

ASU climate experts who have spent their academic lives dedicated to the changes our planet has seen have grown tired of the lack of urgency.

“At the present level of national contributions and commitments we are heading towards a 2.4 centigrade world, and this in view of the fact that even a 1.5 degree increase will leave parts of the globe such as Singapore, Seychelles, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Dominican Republic, Cuba, the Bahamas and Belize threatened for their very existence,” says Peter Schlosser, vice president and vice provost for Global Futures at ASU. “This fact highlights how serious the problem we are facing is and how urgent climate action has become. We have waited too long to act and are now confronted with the need for action on an unprecedented scale without any time to spare.”

The big wins centered on curbing methane emissions, finalizing the carbon market outlines first set out in the 2015 Paris Accords and finally including coal and fossil fuels as official

parts of the agreement language. But, perhaps the great win of this year’s COP was not simply the inclusion of more youth and global diversity, but their very vocal presence and insistence that they will and must be heard in these global climate conversations.

“I was left with the sense that there is increasing, widespread support for addressing equity within and between generations, which is necessary if climate change actions are going to succeed,” says Christopher Boone, dean of the College of Global Futures, who was part of the ASU contingent attending this year’s COP. “The fact that so many young people from very diverse backgrounds, including indigenous people, were in the ‘blue zone’ gave me hope.”

Amanda Ellis, senior director for global partnerships and networks with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, agreed that the youth activists were out in force - as were civil society and business - throughout COP. However, she also felt that COVID-19 travel restrictions made it difficult for representatives of many developing nations, especially those from the Small Island Developing States coalition, to attend.

“In some cases others were brought in to act on their behalf, as in the case of the Maldives, where former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Ambassador to the U.N. in New York Prince Zeidof Jordan made considerable negotiating impact,” says Ellis, herself a former U.N. head of mission and ambassador for New Zealand.

What does this mean as the world looks forward to COP27 in Egypt and beyond? Dave White, associate vice president for research advancement and director of the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, is frustrated by the growing gap between policy action and actual climate events, but sees light in both the opportunity for innovation and in the burgeoning leadership of the world’s young people.

“My emotions during the COP26 vacillated between inspiration and hope to cynicism and despair,” says White, who attended the first full week of COP activities. “COP26 is an international, consensus-based negotiation, and thus, requires compromise and diplomacy and necessarily incremental changes and solutions. As the climate activists and scientists point out, the interventions necessary to bend the curve on green house gas emissions and adaptations are simply not keeping up with the pace of environmental change.

“Yet, the Fridays for Future march was inspiring and it was impressive to see the youth climate activists, including Greta Thunberg and Elizabeth Wathuti, leading the effort to take urgent action on climate mitigation and adaptation and specifically to ‘follow the science’ and commit to maintaining global mean temperature increase to 1.5ºC,” he adds.

Maintaining hope and a commitment to drive innovation, engagement and the development of solutions, regardless of the pace of policy, remains our very best bet.