Utter betrayal civil society groups furious at Cop26 outcome live updates

So where does Cop26 stand in comparison to other Cops in terms of the now traditional overrun?

Officially the deadline for the negotiations is Friday. But almost every Cop has overrun - a few by days. In fact in recent years the increasing trend has been for a Sunday finish (a fact of which all of us camped there, waiting for the end, were grimly aware).

But Cop president Alok Sharma said firmly from the beginning that he did not want to overrun. When Friday evening came with no deal, the organisers announced that a new text would be published on Saturday morning and that that the final stage would take place on Saturday afternoon. And give or take a few hours for urgent huddling, he got the deal through by early Saturday evening.

So, according to the table posted by @carbonreporter earlier this week, this puts Cop26 somewhere between Bali and Warsaw: about 20th on the table.

CarbonReporter (@CarbonReporter)

So: if I apply the standard 2-week rule to COP3, then Kyoto ended on the Saturday at 1530, which puts it after COP10 and before COP6 in terms of over-running: pic.twitter.com/RYkvmTw6ot

November 11, 2021

My colleague Jessica Murray has spoken to locals about the impact of the conference on the city of Glasgow

“It’s been truly amazing. We’re just really grateful to have been at least slightly a part of it,” said local cafe owner Gillian McIntyre. “Where else do you get exposure to such a vast range of people from around the planet all in one place?”

Read her full piece here:

Sir David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the UK government and current chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, has responded to the final deal reached at the UN climate conference in Glasgow.

“There were real advances made in the agreement, following on from Cop21 in Paris 2015. Adaptation, mitigation and finance were all strengthened. Rules on carbon markets were approved. The importance of the protection, conservation and restoration of nature and ecosystems was recognised â€" although the phrase “critical importance” was removed. And the “phase down” â€" not “phase out” â€" of coal was approved, at the last minute.

“But there was no real understanding in the agreement of the extreme nature of the crisis. How do we, the current generation, ensure a manageable future for humanity? The threat to all of us from the loss of polar summer sea ice over the Arctic Ocean is a clear signal of the disaster from rising sea level, severe extreme weather events and high temperatures; but it was not addressed in any way. This was the meeting when the end of coal, oil and gas should have been set in place, in an orderly, efficient and fair way. The power of the USA oil and gas lobby meant that the USA was unable, once again, to show clear leadership on this critical issue.

“Countries and their leadership, fossil fuel industry lobbies, and private companies must all be held accountable for not only failing to follow up on promises made at the meeting but also for the loss of life and damage to our ecosystems that follow from their actions. National and international lawyers have a critically important role to play in managing this accountability.

“And we, the scientific community, have a critical role to play in analysing the actions year-by-year of each country to manage a safe future for humanity, to assist in the process of managing accountability. This role for the scientific community is effectively recognised in the first paragraph of the agreement.

“The follow-up meeting of the UNFCCC will be held this time next year in Egypt. We now have to look to that meeting to set in place not only the rapid phase out of fossil fuels and deforestation, but also for the developed economies to take on the responsibility to fund the removal of excess greenhouse gases at scale from the atmosphere, aimed at bringing the level down to 350 ppm CO2 equivalent. In order to buy time to achieve these objectives, they will also have to develop and roll out the repair of the Arctic Circle so that it is once again covered with ice in the polar summer.”

US nonprofit news organisation Truthout is reporting that in a couple of days’ time the Biden administration is due to “auction off more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling companies less than a week after the United Nations COP26 climate conference”.

According to a Reuters report on this auction, back in September, this is an annual auction which also took place last November. The timing, however, is poor. Truthout reports: “More than 250 environmental, social justice and Indigenous groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday with an ‘urgent plea’ to cancel the lease sale.”

This is Bibi van der Zee, by the way, taking over from Alan Evans for the next few hours. Send any interesting Cop related thoughts to me via @bibivanderzee.

Leo Hickman, the editor of the influential climate change website Carbon Brief, has posted this interesting breakdown of the controversial changes in language around coal.

You can trace the way in which the negotiators were forced over three days to insert more and more conditional words so that in the end they could make sure that the document did, in fact, mention coal and fossil fuels, for the very first time.

Leo Hickman (@LeoHickman)

Here is how the wording of that key "phase down coal" paragraph changed over three days - and five fiercely negotiated iterations - at #COP26 pic.twitter.com/vDq2NHVYOv

November 14, 2021

Chis Stark, head of the UK government’s statutory advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, has told the Herald on Sunday that both the UK and Scottish governments need to set a timetable for ending oil and gas exploration.

Stark suggests it would be “useful and helpful” for the energy sector and could potentially reduce transition costs.

Both UK and Scottish governments have been accused of hypocrisy for not opposing Cambo, a proposed oil drilling project off Shetland, although Scottish ministers point out they do not have power over licensing.

Nicola Sturgeon gave her strongest indication last month of wanting to achieve “the fastest possible just transition” for the sector, but both governments were challenged at Cop26 for not yet signing up to the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance. Sturgeon has said her government is still “considering” joining the coalition of countries committing to phasing out those fossil fuels.

Stark told the Herald on Sunday: “The information we have worked hard at is on the demand side. On that front, it’s clearly useful and helpful to name a date and then build the public support for that date behind it and crucially get commercial response that’s behind it.

“You can see that in a lot of what the UK government has done in the last few weeks â€" which is to build that single idea that you phase out the sale of combustible engines by 2030 and then you have a mandate to increase it. You can do the same on gas boilers by 2033. The big one is the electricity supply by 2035 being fully decarbonised. Naming a date so that everyone is clear on what needs to happen, is a really useful way of clearing the path and bringing the costs down.”

Richard Allan, professor of climate science at the university of Reading, has taken a relatively optimistic view of things and cites the remarkable progress made in recent years on some fronts:

“Less than 10 years ago the solid science of human-caused climate change was still disputed by agenda-driven individuals and organisations who should be made accountable for their damaging delaying tactics. Based on the clear scientific evidence, Cop26 has made progress towards a net zero CO2 emissions world but continued expansion of ambition is crucial in limiting the growing severity of climate extremes and to avoid rendering some regions uninhabitable for future generations.

“Given the glacial pace of progress on climate action, in part due to the blatant short term self-interest of powerful individuals and organisations, it’s almost tempting - like Gulliver at the end of his travels - to feel a sense of loathing for the human species. But there is also a sense of guarded optimism that a spark of the universe came alive, wondered at the beauty of our world, eventually noticed we were soiling it terribly before [we] imperfectly yet doggedly and collectively began digging ourselves out of our mess.”

US climate envoy John Kerry has hailed the Glasgow climate pact as a success, saying that although it was imperfect, “we are in fact closer than we have ever been before to avoiding climate chaos and securing cleaner air, safer water and a healthier planet.”

He warned that Cop26 was “not the finish line”, but said: “Thanks to the work here in Glasgow, the goals we are setting ourselves are much, much closer. And we will come even closer if we implement and follow through [on the deal agreed] … As we leave Glasgow, our code word is going to be implementation, followup and follow-through.”

My colleague Fiona Harvey has more here:

Our economics editor, Larry Elliott, says the Cop26 outcome was foreseeable for those who have been following international struggles over trade talks.

There was a time when developing countries were expected to approve trade deals that had been cooked up by the Americans and the Europeans, but those days are over. China, India and Brazil are now big players in trade talks and are quite prepared to say no to proposals seen as biased towards the interests of developed nations. The last-minute watering down of the text on fossil fuels in Glasgow is a reminder of that. The anger amongst least developed countries over the failure of richer nations to meet their promises of $100bn (£75bn) a year to help them cope with climate change is another.

Read the full piece here:

The Cop26 Coalition, a group of some of the world’s biggest environmental organisations and civil society groups, has issued a damning statement on the outcome of the summit.

Spokesman Asad Rehman, who gave a blistering speech in the conference centre as part of the closing plenary, said:

“This agreement is an utter betrayal of the people. It is hollow words on the climate emergency from the richest countries, with an utter disregard of science and justice. The UK government greenwash and PR have spun us off course.

“The rich refused to do their fair share, with more empty words on climate finance and turning their back on the poorest who are facing a crisis of Covid coupled with economic and climate apartheid - all caused by the actions of the richest.

“It’s immoral for the rich to sit there talking about their future children and grandchildren, when the children of the south are suffering now. This Cop has failed to keep 1.5C alive, and set us on a pathway to 2.5C. All while claiming to act as they set the planet on fire.

“At Cop26, the richest got what they came here for, and the poorest leave with nothing. The people are rising up across the globe to hold our governments and corporations to account - and make them act.”

On BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show, Baroness Parminter, chair of the Lords environment and climate change committee, said that the Glasgow pact did not put the world on the path to 1.5C.

“Our view is that incremental progress has been achieved but not in line with the urgency we require. We’ve heard from countries across the Pacific, from Tuvalu and Marshall Islands, people’s homes are being flooded now. We’ve had reports from IPCC earlier in the year that really need to address these issues now. If we don’t reach 1.5C then some of these effects are going to be irreversible. The pledges and the pact that came out yesterday don’t put us on the path to 1.5C.”

She added that her committee had significant concerns that government departments “don’t seem to be embedding the need for climate change considerations into their policy decision making. We see perverse decisions, like the change to the domestic fuel tax levy on aviation”.

“Although the government has some really good targets … some of the delivery we’re seeing is actually running counter to what those targets require.”

She said the UK government needed to provide “better and clearer leadership” in the next year of its presidency to meet the pledges that had been established.

My colleague Will Hutton at the Observer has written on the complex dance between capitalism and the climate crisis that unfolded at Cop26.

The environmental genie is out of the bottle. In Europe, greens are in government or coalition government in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Scotland â€" and about to be in Germany. Politicians are in the market for votes; Boris Johnson, who is closely tuned to voters’ preferences even if many in his party are not, has been quick to mount a volte face over the climate crisis.

The consequences of the final Cop26 outcome are not clear, but more important is that it has happened at all. The momentum to “keep 1.5 alive” is obvious and that is as vital as the detail. What matters is how national governments and international agencies find ways of directing a capitalism that knows, given what its markets want, that it has to move in this direction.

Read the full piece here:

Evelyne Huytebroeck, co-chair of the European Green party, has said:

“Climate justice remains vastly forgotten. The high expectations from developing countries for loss and damages to be fully recognised were not matched in the final agreement. But the fight is not over. As Greens, we will herald this fight for climate justice at the European level but also through our Greens in government across Europe.”

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has commented on the outcome of the talks:

IUCN welcomes the progress made in Glasgow, including with respect to nature. However, it stresses that this headway will not be sufficient to “keep 1.5C alive”, and calls for significant and meaningful step change at Cop27. We are running out of time and options.

For the first time, world leaders have clearly recognised the interlinked relationship between the global biodiversity and climate crises and the critical role that nature plays in both adaption and mitigation simultaneously. This is an important and welcome move forward.

However, to keep global temperature rise within 1.5C, we need to move from recognition to establishing concrete pathways for delivery. In this respect, while the Cop decisions are an important step forward, the absence of a clear reference to nature-based solutions is a missed opportunity that will need to be revisited as soon as possible.

Chris Stark, head of the the government’s statutory climate advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, says the body will publish a stocktake after the Cop26 summit.

Chris Stark (@ChiefExecCCC)

The Glasgow Climate Pact is agreed.@theCCCuk will shortly publish a stocktake of where we stand after #COP26, including advice on the UK Presidency’s role for the next year.

Tonight I’ll just reflect that we have a new platform for even greater global ambition. Hope we use it. pic.twitter.com/NBcaMKIN3T

November 13, 2021

Ugandan youth climate activist Vanessa Nakate has tweeted about her disappointment about the lack of a “loss and damage facility” - essentially, compensation for climate damage - in the Glasgow pact.

She also praises Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland, who became the first country to pledge to a loss and damage fund with a $2m pledge.

Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash)

#COP26 was nearly a breakthrough moment for #LossAndDamage â€" it seemed for a brief hopeful moment, that in Glasgow, leaders might finally commit to establishing an international #LossAndDamage fund to help vulnerable countries already losing so much to the climate crisis

Thread

November 13, 2021 Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash)

But in the final hours, the US, EU and UK stripped the concept of a “fund” out of the COP decision text - watering it down to instead to holding a “workshop”. Rich countries clearly do not want to pay for the costs they are inflicting on poorer nations.

November 13, 2021 Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash)

As FM @NicolaSturgeon â€" who just made Scotland the first country in the world to pledge funding to Loss and Damage â€" said, “Finance is key to this, not as an act of charity but as an act of reparation.”

November 13, 2021 Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash)

“Rich, developed nations like [Scotland] owe an obligation â€" a debt … because we’ve created climate change. We’ve benefited through generations from the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere. And countries like Vanessa’s are right now paying the price.”

November 13, 2021 Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash)

#COP27 moves to Egypt â€" and the Global South. We cannot adapt to starvation. We cannot adapt to extinction. We cannot eat coal. We cannot drink oil. We will not give up.

November 13, 2021

Asked about the $100bn climate finance promise that has been broken by rich countries, Sharma says he understands vulnerable countries’ sense of frustration.

“We know with confidence that that $100bn will come in 2023,” he says. He adds that adaptation finance will be doubled by 2025 as well (though does not mention that it is pledged to be doubled from 2019 levels, not current levels).

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