COP26: Doomed to fail?

Photo: Wilton Park

In a few short months, the twenty-sixth United Nations (UN) Climate Conference, COP26, will take place in Glasgow, Scotland. With the scientific consensus increasingly unanimous on the facts of climate change, the fate of our future lies in the hands of our world leaders and policymakers, as they prepare to discuss the coordinated social transition towards a low carbon future, necessary to avoid climate catastrophe. Are the UN negotiators up to the task?

Faith against better judgement

Through democratic power, state representatives are entrusted to provide for the needs of the population. Our world leaders’ collective failure to respond appropriately and effectively to the rapid onset of climate change puts doubt on their decision-making capacity.

Until now, global policy efforts to combat climate change have been ineffective. Twenty-five UN Climate Conferences have come and gone, and still there is a persistent lack of a coordinated effort on the part of heads of state to respond to the existential threat of climate collapse. The latest conference, COP26, scheduled to take place in Glasgow in November this year, is being referred to as a window of opportunity and the last chance to radically change course in climate matters before it is too late.

The urgency of COP26 stems from the findings of the 2021 Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published on a seven-year basis. The IPCC’s function is to publish credible scientific data, necessary to inform policymakers’ decisions regarding climate action. While typically a conservative organization, its latest report amounts to a dire prognosis for the Earth’s natural systems unless immediate, collective action is taken to transform society’s consumer behaviour. With the latest IPCC publication in hindsight, it seems natural to invest one’s hopes in COP26 and expect negotiations to be successful this time around. However, in light of twenty-five past UN Climate Conferences, it seems increasingly likely that negotiations in Glasgow will simply replicate the model set by precedent. Policymakers, as representatives of the status quo, seem to content themselves with tweaking certain aspects of the system but often fail to challenge the logic upon which the system as a whole is based.

To pluck the weed out by the roots

Interestingly, Western imperialism has been a driving factor in the destruction of natural systems and cultures since its inception. The idea that nature, resources and other human beings exist to be made use of for the profit of the imperial power has been a cornerstone of Western civilization for the past centuries. To this day, extractivism remains a profitable modus operandi for multinational carbon industries, while the outsourcing of production to third world countries by the West relies on exploitation of labour as well as resources. In truth, the basic mindset that led to the current global predicament has not changed from the onset of Western imperialism. As a result, the global system is ill-equipped to respond to the ecological crisis, being mostly responsible for perpetuating it.

Twenty-five Climate Conferences down the road, we should be familiar with the depressing lack of solid climate action on the world stage. While the logic of the system that created the climate crisis continues to thrive, and while the very actors we expect to solve the problem are themselves deeply connected to the power structures representing the status quo, we are incapable of making environmental progress. There is a need for bottom-up initiatives to demand urgent and radical reassessment of Western values along with accompanying changes to our society’s function and structure. Otherwise, leaving the decision to our policymakers may prove devastating.