Code red: COP26 must act to curb an existential threat

It is something of a tragic irony that the COVID-19 pandemic has been the single most influential factor in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in recent times. It took a global health crisis to cut emissions by about 5.4 percent last year, as many of us were under repeated government-imposed lockdowns. This is not to suggest that the cure-all for climate change will be either pandemics or confinement behind closed doors. Yet, the pandemic demonstrated that we can indeed change our environmentally hazardous habits — and rather rapidly if necessary.

As more than 30,000 people, among them 100 world leaders, descend on the Scottish city of Glasgow this weekend to attend the 26th iteration of the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), we expect them to rely neither on miracles nor pandemic-like disasters to address the issue.

In fact, it should be demanded of them to come up with a coherent and coordinated plan to prevent the climate change cataclysm which is already knocking on our doors and threatening enormous human suffering. Some estimate that global warming could claim the lives of up to 1 billion people by the end of the century, and lead to the loss of livelihoods and forced migration of millions of others. All of which will change our societies and our planet beyond recognition.

While there is clearly so much to discuss in this global summit, which is also attracting civil society campaigners, business people, the media and protesters, all participants must nevertheless avoid rehashing what is now the conventional wisdom — that climate change is an indisputable reality which poses an existential threat, and that the major contributor to it is human behavior. This should be the working assumption, and the focus should be on how to contain it in the short run and reverse it in the longer term.

The target set for the international community is clear: To limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above to pre-industrial levels.

However, clear targets do not necessarily suggest a clear path to achieve them, and although half a century of environmental summits might have increased awareness of the issue, and supplied more indisputable scientific evidence on the sources of global warming and how to deal with it, this has not been matched with an adequate international response. And even at this 11th hour, with a last-ditch crisis summit held under the auspices of the UK and Italy, as we stare into the abyss, there is no guarantee of a sustainable outcome, or any assurance that countries will make pledges they will agree on, sign and fulfil.

If you wonder at my pessimism, then look no further than the record of past climate change summits, including the 2015 Paris COP that led to an accord that serves as the benchmark for limiting global warming, and was signed by 196 parties. Report after report brings conclusive evidence that not all countries are adhering to what they agreed to and, thus, are compromising the battle against global warming and its consequences.

Now, on the eve of COP26, the UN Environment Programme’s annual report, “Emissions Gap Report 2021,” should ring alarm bells across the globe. The results of national plans to cut carbon emissions fall far short of what is needed to avert dangerous consequences.

The target set for the international community is clear: To limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above to pre-industrial levels.

Yossi Mekelberg

The rate of implementation of reducing greenhouse gas emissions currently amounts to only a quarter of what is needed to limit global warming to 2 C by 2030, as was originally set by the Paris accord. To limit global warming to no more than 1.5 C requires a cut seven times bigger than the current rate. Hence, the UNEP is forecasting that the world is on course to warm up by around 2.7 C — with hugely devastating results. Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, unsurprisingly described these findings as a “thundering wake-up call” to world leaders.

Many of the obstacles to tackling climate change are as much perceptual as technical. They derive from fears among the more affluent economies and societal segments that limiting greenhouse emissions, including by reductions in the use of fossil fuels, will result in economic slowdown and job losses, and so will harm living standards and lifestyles.

Inevitably, any radical change — and meeting the requirements for reducing global warming means taking a number of radical measures — is bound to disfavor certain sectors in society. Therefore, any plan coming out of Scotland in the coming fortnight must allay these fears and ensure that it is supported by a critical mass worldwide, which clearly understands its benefits are worth the sacrifices. Moreover, this should not be an exercise in punishing the big polluters and taking a sanctimonious approach, but one that follows the science, is applied with a good measure of common sense, and is led by imaginative and responsible global leadership.

After all, containing climate change is not about denying that it comes with a price, but acknowledging that it is inevitable and by the end of the transition the benefits — our very survival — will outstrip the costs. Shouldering much of the need to cut polluting emissions is bound to fall on high-income economies, as they are the main polluters, and in this context it is regrettable that both China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin have sent their apologies and will not attend. Without China and Russia fully committed to the path of rectifying climate change, the chances of limiting global warming will suffer a major blow.

The evidence over climate change is dire, and the short-term looks rather menacing, but this is not the time for doom and gloom. It is a moment in which humanity faces a simple existential choice. Is the way of life that emerged with the Industrial Revolution more precious to us than the future of humanity and our planet? Or are we capable, as generations before us did in face of such danger to our civilizations, to rise above the here and now, and step up to the challenge of green sustainable development?

The eyes of people across the world are turning with anxious hope and expectation to Glasgow, and they are expecting the world’s leaders to rise above narrow political calculations, vested interests and short-term profits, and to pave a new road to an environmentally friendly and sustainable future. They can do this, and it is for the rest of us to push them toward that finishing line.

• Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media.

Twitter: @YMekelberg