Hundreds of people leave the ‘exclusive’ COP26 in a stinging reprimand

Approximately 800 members of civil society groups berated countries on the last scheduled day of the UN climate talks in Glasgow for not agreeing on vigorous action to prevent the climate crisis and exclude the people most affected. .

Speaking at a “town plenary” meeting on Friday, youth, farmers, trade unionists, environmental groups and advocates for gender and disability rights criticized the event for being among the most exclusive climate negotiations yet. After the event, activists flooded the corridors of the COP26 headquarters in a protest march outside the protected “Blue Zone” where world leaders gather.

“The UK presidency has swept under the rug all opportunities for people who cannot speak out on the global agenda in a way that can shape the course we are on right now,” said Mohamed Adow, an expert on international climate politician and founder of Power Shift Africa. “

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is based on the principle that country decisions and negotiations can be subject to public scrutiny. Since negotiations are usually open only to observer groups, but not to the media, civil society groups play a critical role in making the process transparent to the outside world.

Limited observers

Organizers of COP26 in Glasgow had called this conference the most inclusive yet, despite criticism that delegates from poor countries faced travel restrictions and struggled to obtain COVID-19 vaccines. However, even for the thousands who made their way to Glasgow this year, many negotiations were closed to observers due to COVID-19 capacity limits or security concerns.

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The presence of observers has always been a sensitive topic at COPs (short for conference of the parties to the UN agreement), explained University of Ottawa professor and climate policy expert Ryan Katz-Rosene. While they can provide more transparency and accountability, their presence also means they can provide near real-time feedback to negotiators. That’s particularly concerning when industry lobbyists are also speaking to negotiators. The presence of civil society groups and journalists can provide an important counterweight, he said.

At a press conference on Friday, Friends of the Earth Scotland climate and energy activist Catherine Rance noted that fossil fuel lobbyists were welcomed into the negotiations and that the UK had yet to honor their commitment. to end fossil fuel subsidies abroad. An informal analysis by the research and independent nonprofit constituency group at COP26 found that there was a 77 percent increase in the number of delegates attending the event, including 232 percent more from media organizations and 74 percent more non-profit organizations than COP25.

However, the capacity limits in the trading rooms mean that the increase in the number of attendees had little impact on the number of people who were actually in the trading rooms or even admitted to press conferences.

The restrictions have exacerbated frustrations with the overall pace of the negotiations, which critics say have not been ambitious enough to reflect the severity of the crisis.

“UNFCCC governments have repeatedly failed to deliver fair and meaningful results that will keep global temperature rise below 1.5C,” Adow said. “Despite the growing urgency, time is running out. The countries of the global North bear the greatest historical responsibility for emissions and have been enriched by the colonization and exploitation of the communities of the global South.”

A draft text released Friday morning called on countries to double the funds available to help poorer nations adapt and called on countries to provide stricter emission reduction targets for next year. However, the text remains contentious as countries dispute money, the speed of emissions cuts and whether “fossil fuels” should be included in the text.

Twenty-three developed countries, including Canada, the US and the UK, are responsible for half of historical CO2 emissions, according to the Global Carbon Project. Annually, on a per capita basis, Canada, New Zealand, and the US made it to the top of the list this year.

There are no plans to cut oil production

Environmental groups have repeatedly called on major fossil fuel producing countries to cut production. A September study in the journal Nature found that about 90 percent of the world’s remaining oil and gas reserves must remain in the ground to have a 50-50 chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 C.

Despite being the world’s fourth-largest oil and gas producer last year, Canada has no explicit plans to cut production. In an interview in Glasgow on Friday, Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault said the federal government has no jurisdiction to halt production. Instead, the country last week announced a new plan to limit the country’s emissions.

“People say you need to keep (fossil fuels) in the ground,” he said. “Ultimately, it is what the atmosphere sees that counts. If the atmosphere sees less emissions, we are achieving our goal.”

Still, speakers in the town hall made it clear that countries’ promises, including Canada’s, remain insufficient. Current policies and actions are expected to raise global temperatures by 2.5 to 2.9 C, according to Carbon Action Tracker.

Environmental, indigenous and human rights groups are also concerned that net zero plans that attempt to neutralize emissions by capturing CO2 in natural environments such as forests will further push indigenous peoples and peasants off their land.

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, executive director of Indigenous Climate Action, echoed those concerns earlier in the day. Article 6 of Paris Agreement – a contentious provision that would create international carbon markets – would put the lands, territories and rights of many indigenous peoples “even more at risk,” he said.

What is needed is a total transformation of our economies and philosophies, said speaker Ta’Kaiya Blaney, an indigenous youth climate activist from the Tla’amin Nation on the west coast of British Columbia.

In this sense, the climate conference has failed, he said.

“COP26 is a performance,” he said. “It is an illusion built to save capitalist economies rooted in resource extraction and colonialism … It is what caused climate change, and I am not going to seek solutions from my colonizer,” he said.