Editorial: Glasgow climate summit brought incremental progress. That’s a failure
The U.N. summit in Glasgow concluded over the weekend with a new climate agreement among nearly 200 countries that drew applause from world leaders in attendance.
But they should be embarrassed patting themselves on the back over something so inadequate. The two-week proceeding brought incremental progress, but that in itself is a colossal failure.
We need bold and swift action to avert a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, but got mostly timid compromises, far-off pledges and watered-down commitments. This is an emergency, and it is too late to tinker around the edges and call it progress.
The United States is going to Scotland with a patchwork plan that falls far short of what’s needed to prevent climate change devastation.
Case in point: The Glasgow pact for the first time in more than 25 years of negotiations makes explicit reference to the fossil fuels that are causing climate change. But it calls only for a “phasedown of unabated coal” — language that was supposed to read “phase-out” until it was weakened at the last minute by India. It calls for a “phase-out” of “inefficient” fossil-fuel subsidies, but includes no commitment to ending oil and gas production.
Is this really what our leaders were celebrating?
That’s not to say the conference was a total bust. Leading up to the summit, more than 150 countries submitted new or updated climate pledges. Rich countries promised to “at least double” funding for vulnerable countries to adapt to a hotter planet. And leaders now plan to “revisit and strengthen” their climate pledges by the end of next year, meaning we won’t have to wait for years to see whether their actions are progressing.
The U.S. and China, the planet’s two biggest polluters, pledged to work together on “enhanced climate actions,” and Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Biden were set to meet virtually on Monday. There were commitments from the U.S. and more than 100 other nations to curb methane emissions and combat deforestation. Other countries announced plans to switch to electric vehicles and to end fossil fuel extraction, things that need to happen to avert catastrophic warming. But the failure of the U.S. and other major polluters to join some of those initiatives was deeply concerning.
The U.S. is, of course, in a better position to tackle climate change now. President Trump abandoned the 2015 Paris agreement and pursued cruel and reckless environmental policies at the blatant behest of fossil fuel interests. But Trump’s conduct set an embarrassingly low bar.
Allowing global leaders to feel that what happened in Glasgow was acceptable would be a disastrous mistake.
The U.S. is back at the table, with President Biden striking a conciliatory tone, promising to lead by example and put its commitments into action. But the fact that the U.S. is still blocking or abstaining from so many essential commitments, like phasing out fossil fuels and vehicles powered by them, shows how much our government is still dragging its feet.
Rich countries that are responsible for most of the planet-warming emissions in the atmosphere still failed to come through for vulnerable, low-lying island nations and developing countries that are paying the price. Opposition from the U.S. and the European Union means the question of funding for poorer nations to deal with drought, flooding and other already occurring climate impacts will be put off another year.
The world has already warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius over preindustrial times, and the stated goal of the Glasgow conference was to instigate enough action to keep the temperature rise below 1.5 degrees and prevent truly dangerous levels of climate disruption. That’s still theoretically possible, and we have a better chance than before. But let’s be clear: It’s not looking good.
The array of new climate pledges, if ultimately delivered on, would shave a fraction of a degree off the warming expected by the end of the century, and that’s not enough to avoid calamity. The Earth is still on track to heat up by well over 2 degrees, and suffer disastrous impacts, unless countries cut pollution in half by 2030. But global emissions are still going up.
Young people and climate activists, who protested by the tens of thousands outside the conference to demand action instead of more talk, are right to be furious and even despondent over our leaders’ failure to act. Our collective house is burning, and many politicians are treating it like a business negotiation, a chore to be sorted out next year.
Yet we delude ourselves if we think that climate change can be solved at a conference. There is no way to force any country to deliver on its promises. The process set up by the 2015 Paris accord relies essentially on naming and shaming countries that fail to deliver on their promises. If anything, Glasgow, like conferences before it, highlighted the chasm between world leaders’ pledges and their actions.
Whether their promises are realized ultimately comes down to domestic policy. We must demand our representatives enact tough climate policies at the national, state and local level at every opportunity, or replace them with leaders who will. Because all of our lives depend on it.
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