(SMH) Thunberg Calls COP26 A ‘Failure’ As Summit Chief Warns Of A Long Week Ahead

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley

Glasgow: On what was billed as youth day at COP26, some of the old men of the movement took to centre stage inside the United Nations “blue zone” to consider the week that had passed and call for more action and haste in the climate effort.

Most notable was the former US vice-president Al Gore, who quoted Winston Churchill, saying: “The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close.

“In its place, we are now entering a period of consequences.”

Mr Gore said a political tipping point had been reached, and that a green revolution larger in scale than the industrial revolution and in pace with the digital revolution was now under way.

Greta Thunberg addresses protesters outside the climate summit in Glasgow on Friday, local time. Credit: PA

Outside the wire, Greta Thunberg dismissed the rhetoric of older generations at COP as she addressed thousands of young people who rallied in central Glasgow.

“It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure,” she said. “It should be obvious that we cannot solve a crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place.

“We need immediate drastic annual emission cuts unlike anything the world has ever seen.

“The people in power can continue to live in their bubble filled with their fantasies, like eternal growth on a finite planet and technological solutions that will suddenly appear seemingly out of nowhere and will erase all of these crises just like that.

“All this while the world is literally burning, on fire, and while the people living on the front lines are still bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.” 

Al Gore told the conference the world was entering a “period of consequences”. Credit: Getty Images

Back in the blue zone, the success – or failure – of the first week of COP is still a matter of live debate.

Another old man of the movement, US climate envoy John Kerry, told reporters he detected a great sense of urgency at the meeting compared to previous UN climate talks, but warned that the “the job is not done yet”.

Climate demonstrators gather in Glasgow during COP26 on Friday. Credit: AP

The COP’s organisers have been relieved that outside analysts have projected that, if all the commitments so far made as part of the UN negotiations and in the so-called “Glasgow package” of side-deals that the UK has been pursuing for months in the lead-up to this meeting are kept, warming will peak at less than 2 degrees this century.

Before the COP, that figure was 2.7 degrees, and before the Paris talks it was 6 degrees, COP president Alok Sharma reminded a press conference.

A brief history of climate science and global climate negotiations. By Tom Compagnoni.

But echoing the message of the protesters outside the wire, Mr Sharma said he did not believe “populations would accept it” if leaders returned from the meeting at the end of next week and their pledges and agreements did not bring those projections down to 1.5 degrees, and demonstrate how such new ambitions might be met.

Delegates and negotiators have focused on hammering out the fine print of what is hoped will become a document some are already calling the “Glasgow pact”.

Though Mr Sharma would not say what the sticking points were in tens of different negotiating tracks, there is no secret that some states, like China, do not want 1.5 degrees locked in as the target.

Others are resisting calls from blocs of nations such as the so-called High Ambition Coalition – a caucus of both small island states and powerhouses such as the United States – to make the reporting of new reductions targets annual rather than a five-yearly responsibility for signatories of the Paris Agreement.

The arduous work of negotiating so-called article 6 – the rules governing a future global carbon market – grinds on, as it has now for six years.

Glasgow summit
How the world ran out of time

Without proper transparency, the positive projections celebrated this week could retreat into fantasy.

In the coming days, ministers will begin to return to the blue zone to check on the progress of their negotiators.

Mr Sharma is already demanding more from them, issuing a statement to the teams saying he expected work to start early and move quickly on Monday, and that he did not want COP to bleed on into its second weekend as it has in the past.

Glasgow Climate Summit

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Links

• ‘COP26 is a failure’: Greta Thunberg says climate summit has turned into a PR event 
• (Video) Climate activist Greta Thunberg leads massive protest at COP26
• COP26: Thunberg tells Glasgow protest politicians are pretending
• Greta Thunberg joins a protest in Glasgow.
• (Video) ‘You can shove your climate crisis up your arse’: Greta Thunberg sings at Cop26 
• If pledges already made at Glasgow are met, warming ‘to peak below 2 degrees’
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