It’s a matter of perspective

Fourteen days of negotiations and late nights in an off-limits, futuristic, and disinfected conference centre in Glasgow have brought some interesting promises for the upcoming years, all included in what has been called the “Glasgow Climate Pact.”

However, the objective of “leaving coal” has been diluted at the last minute with the shared effort of “reducing gradually” rather than “eliminating gradually” all energy generated from coal. This was explicitly requested by China and has weakened the power of the agreement. It must be said that, anyway, this is the first time in history and in almost 30 years of negotiations that such a strategy is mentioned in a global climate summit, which sends out quite a clear message.

Glasgow’s biggest surprise was the last-minute agreement between the world’s two largest emitters, the USA and China. These countries decided to work together to reduce climate impact. It is not an absolute agreement. However, it is more a friendly handshake for a common goal by two players that haven’t gotten along quite well lately.

Another significant result one awaited for a long time was the delivery of the “Paris rulebook,” a text containing details regarding Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and regulating international emissions trading markets. It has standardized how emissions are reported, creating a much more transparent and clear market, making the system a vital tool to guide international climate finance and strategy.

Glasgow’s COP26, for the first time, achieved something different from the past. Outside the tight core of the UN negotiations, some further collateral agreements have been reached. Those are not binding but highly appealing; since they focus on deforestation, methane, and EVs.  To determine if Glasgow’s conference has been a success or a failure, we need to question ourselves about the meaning we give to these two terms.

Considering Glasgow’s conference for its primary objective (avoiding reaching a temperature rise over +1,5 degrees above the pre-industrial era by the end of the century), the summit has failed. While evaluating the long-term efforts related to net-zero emissions, the takeaway is that the EU and the USA have set this goal for 2050, China for 2060, and India for 2070. By doing so, we will probably see a threshold of +1,8 degrees instead of +1,5, with dangerous and unpredictable consequences.

On the other hand, the picture is different if we evaluate the COP26 compared to previous summits.

We have seen a clear determination by organizers to overcome the obstacles which have arisen during the last day, avoiding the conference to conclude in a failure. Negotiators knew that politicians were watching this time and, thanks to environmental activists’ pressures, so was the world.

With almost 20 years of delay, this conference has certified that the environmental emergency is a top and global priority. It was probably the most crucial result we could have hoped for, considering the strains to have these issues internationally recognized as a real problem to face.

Trying to convince 197 countries to reach a common consensus is diabolically difficult. Some significant progress has been made and, although it might not look like it, the goal of avoiding the +1,5 degrees is not so out of reach.

Changes require time, especially for economic, political, and social change. Most often, at a certain point, nothing happens until everything drastically starts moving in the right direction. Negative news on climate is making us face the reality of facts, but, at least for once, we are critical and not destructive.