Climate Change Summit, Glasgow

by Matthew Cannelora

(Ongoing. Last update 11/19.) The COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, has ended. The two-week event had been heralded and demeaned, as either the masterstroke to end Climate Change, or just another rhetoric festival, full of political grandstanding.

The climate change summit in Glasgow has now ended. As reported by Political Soapbox, there are differing views about what the US Agenda would actually accomplish.

Opponents of President Biden and his various climate goals, such as writers at the Heritage Foundation, claim that Biden’s agenda of financial measures and rhetorical speechifying amount to little more than grandstanding— they argue that no single agendum will actually move the needle on climate change.

The Financial Angle

But there are indications that the agenda is working. According to a Reuters report from 11/3, there is a new pledge from financial institutions worth $130 trillion— with a ‘tee’— to fund green initiatives in the developing world. This comes with over $500 billion in commitments from the US and GB, alone.

The Reuters report, however, also contains this telling caveat:

"These happy headlines conceal a wealth of loopholes and opportunities for backsliding that we cannot afford if we are to avoid climate breakdown," the Environmental Justice Foundation said in a statement.

All of which means that the $130 trillion pledge will either be the life raft the climate needs— or just another flash-in-the-pan clickbait headline that will net us nothing.

Empty Rhetoric

Greta Thunberg, Swedish Climate Celebrity, has been outspoken about her dubious feelings regarding COP26. On Monday, in a park in Glasgow, Greta spoke at a rally calling out the politicians inside the summit.

She’s quoted by The Sun, saying, “Inside COP they're just politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously, pretending to take the present seriously of the people who're already being affected today by the climate crisis.”

To juxtapose against that, the BBC reported last month that Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Japan are all implicated in a plot to subvert the Climate Summit. According to the BBC, leaked documents show that the three aforementioned countries are among a number of delegate groups asking the UN to obfuscate evidence that fossil fuels are contributing to increased global temperatures.

On the one hand we have Ms. Thunberg telling us that politicians don’t care. On the other hand we have leaked documents showing they do care— about hiding their culpability in Climate Change.

UPDATES

Since the first writing of this article, the climate change summit has ended. And like with many Summits of this nature, there were press conferences, photo ops, and of course, the obligatory signing of a piece of paper.

And like with many of these Summits, the document might not be worth much. According to Nature, scientists have already deemed the Climate Pact as ineffectual at combating the dreaded 2 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures.

And, also according to Nature, the world leaders caved to countries like China and India, changing the language regarding carbon from “phasing out” the fossil fuel to “phasing down.” Even in empty rhetoric, with no teeth, the word “out” was too volatile, it seems.

The BBC reports that world leaders have “promised to stop deforestation” in the next nine years. While this pledge doesn’t come with any teeth, either (there are no consequences that we could find for anyone who misses the deadline), the pledge did at least come with money. The BBC further reported that the pledge comes with over $19 Billion in resources to curb deforestation.

There was further talk of investing in cleaner technologies, opening up financial pipelines for developing countries to look at green-energy even if it costs more, and to meet again in next year to further reduce emissions.

But like Greta said, this could all be more PR stunting and posing. We still haven’t seen any headlines suggesting there could be consequences for a country not meeting it’s Climate Change Goals.

No consequences, that is, except the ruination of our planet.

Our Next Steps

The Blue Cavalry will continue to report on the Climate Summit. But for now, we leave it, again, to Greta Thunberg to help us with what should come next. Whatever happens with the Summit, we the people of the world need to act. In the US, that means continuing to elect and support government leaders who will actually do something about climate change.

Again according to the Sun, speaking to the difference between the politicians inside and the people rallying outside, Greta said, "Change is not going to come from inside there. That is not leadership, this is leadership. This is what leadership looks like.”

We need to find and define what our leadership will look like, here at home.

Until we see more self-imposed or unilaterally enforced, we can expect world and business leaders to continue abusing the environment. The consequences will come, though—more storms, longer droughts, water shortages, and ever-increasing environmental havoc may not get the attention of our leaders, but it should get our attention. And it should inspire us to get better leaders.