v. The Climate Column
The COP26 Coalition: an interview with Quan Nguyen Patrick Dunne This month I spoke to Quan Nguyen from the COP26 Coalition to find out more about the international summit on climate change that will be taking place in Glasgow in November 2021— COP26. Alarmingly, the conference is already being derailed by political and economic special interests, including the fossil fuel industry. We discussed what the Coalition is doing to create a movement for Glasgow and beyond. To start, I asked him to tell us a bit about himself and the COP26 Coalition. Quan: My name is Quan and I work for the COP26 Coalition as the Scottish Co-ordinator. The COP26 Coalition is a broad civil alliance that brings together groups from across society to organise for climate justice at COP26. We are trying very hard to get more than just the usual suspects involved. As well as climate activists, we are working with migrant justice organisers, youth strikers, and direct action groups, and also Trades Unions and faith groups, to form a broad alliance that represents all parts of the UK and can push strongly for transformative change around COP26 and beyond. In Glasgow, we are building towards mobilising as many people as possible for a Global Day of Action on the 6th November, 2021, to give a Glaswegian grounding to our activism when COP26 comes to the city. We are organising a People's Summit that will give a platform those who are most marginalised and most affected by the climate crisis and whose voices won’t be heard in the official COP26 channels. Me: So, tell us about COP. As I understand it, this is a regular conference bringing governments, NGOs and big groups together to plan for climate change. Is that broadly correct? Quan: So, let’s start with the technicalities and then move towards the more political side. COP stands for Conference of the Parties, which are the countries that have signed up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). This was a very big
treaty signed in 1992, in Rio. Since then, all of the parties that signed the agreement have met up annually— Glasgow will be the 26th time —to find a common framework to address climate change, reduce emissions, and make plans for how to adapt to the changes the world will inevitably face. There have been several milestones since 1992: readers will remember the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, both of which were hammered out at COPs. The Paris Agreement is particularly important because it represents a major shift in the model of reacting to climate change. Kyoto was legally binding; Paris isn't. Under the Paris Agreement, each country has to set out its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), basically saying: ‘This is what we feel like we can and will do this year to reduce emissions.’ Paris also outlined the emission reductions and some of the policies that will be needed to keep global warming capped at two degrees of warming (above pre-industrial levels), or below, if possible. But because none of this is legally binding, none of the countries that have signed up are on track to meet their targeted reduction in emissions that will keep warming below two degrees. Me: None of them? Quan: Virtually none. Maybe one or two African countries are on track, but certainly none of the big economies are. We are at about 1 degree of warming right now and we are currently on track for 2.6 to 3 degrees. This is because none of the countries were able to get binding mechanisms in place to enforce the targets. Because of this, COP26 in Glasgow is seen as one of the big milestone COPs— it will be a one of the first opportunities since Paris to reconfirm these targets. The hope is that the Paris Agreement will be replaced by a Glasgow Agreement that will set out a new pathway for keeping warming below two degrees. Me: So, what will be happening at the conference in Glasgow?
