Elizabeth May

November 10, 2021

Green Party parliamentarians gather at every COP for a “Green Family Breakfast.” It is always on the Wednesday of the second week. The schedule is well-chosen. It is the unofficial launch of crunch time.

For the next three days (or maybe four), negotiations become tenser, more complex, inching toward consensus. Skilled negotiators look for where the final agreement will land. Thanks to the fact that there are now nine Green Party ministers in the European region (not all in the EU), plus New Zealand’s outstanding climate minister, as a group we have great access and insight into where things stand. We needed a lot more spaces at the breakfast table as our global influence grows. This morning, a European colleague noted, almost casually, that we now have 15,000 elected Greens in Europe at multiple levels of government.  I will claim a newly minted minister in the Scottish Government as the first Canadian Green to make it into government. Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Green Party of Scotland, was born in Calgary.

It is somewhat reassuring to have my analysis shared in an earlier Policy dispatch confirmed. Nearly everyone mentioned the inappropriate nature of the flashy greenwashing events that have overwhelmed the normal multilateral (boring) United Nations process. Our French colleague called it “obscene.”

Certainly, the reality that the largest “delegation” at COP is the 503 fossil fuel lobbyists and representatives adds to the obscenity. On the other hand, I think their influence is waning — 150,000 people on the streets are much more on the minds of politicians than 503 men in suits in the rooms.  The nuclear industry has gone in a different direction. It looks like they went to central casting to recruit the uniformly attractive corps of fresh-faced youth who are ever-present here, sporting their “ask me about nuclear” t-shirts.  They even had a designated place in the line of march at last Saturday’s protests.

There are several COPs happening all at once: the growing “trade show” COP where fossil fuel and nuclear lobbyists promote self-interest, the grassroots COP where, even inside the accredited and heavily patrolled space, civil society holds energized events where new ideas emerge, and then there is the real Conference of the Parties where the commitments to hold on to a livable world are fleshed out in the impenetrable language of UN diplomacy. That third COP is just getting underway.

UN-language is sometimes a shock for the uninitiated. When the President of COP, UK Minister Alok Sharma, yesterday posted his draft cover statement for consideration, it was titled a “non-paper.”  An odd, but common UN-term it attracted ridicule on twitter. The draft is essentially a list of bullet points, mentioning everything that needs to be mentioned. Then today, we received a more fleshed out draft. The bones of a strong commitment are there, but so too is a regurgitation of “blah, blah, blah.”

This COP could still avoid failure, while inevitably falling short of what is needed.  And there remains an outside chance of actual success.

Overlaying the usual COP strategy of negotiating round the clock to exhaustion-induced compromise is the COVID reality. Yesterday a key negotiator on climate finance, the diplomat who speaks on behalf of the developing world (referred to as the “Group of 77 and China”) tested positive for COVID and is side-lined. Some developing world diplomats never got their visas from the UK in time and try to co-chair on zoom. At this level, in crunch time, face to face diplomacy does not migrate smoothly to virtual format.

The finance issues remain a major focus. The developing world is not impressed that the pledge made by wealthy nations in Copenhagen in 2009, one endorsed by Stephen Harper at the time, of $100 billion/year in climate financing by 2020 has not been delivered.  Germany and Canada (with former Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson co-leading the effort) reported to the presidency that the target was missed, but could be met by 2023. Meanwhile, the intractable issues of Article 6 (the section of the Paris Agreement that creates the possibility of global carbon markets) is still under negotiation. Six years after Paris, the international community still has not developed rules for such carbon trades.  Done right, Article 6 could significantly advance climate action and financing for poorer nations. Done wrong, it could blow a hole through the whole agreement.

A huge breakthrough, believe it or not, would be if the final statement acknowledged what the UN Secretary General and IPCC have been saying for years – we need a rapid end to dependency on fossil fuels.  Even mentioning “fossil fuels” in the text is a breakthrough. With the draft text released today, for the first time the words “fossil fuels” now appear in UNFCCC draft decision:

Calls upon Parties to accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels; 

Note, it does not call for phasing out all fossil fuels, but that coal be eliminated and subsidies for fossil fuels be phased out.  The developing countries and progressive wealthy countries will keep pushing for more and stronger language.

The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, a parliamentarians’ initiative that I signed on to well before COP, is gaining momentum. Over 120 MPs from over twenty countries have already signed on, with the goal of 1,000 MPs before COP27.

Committing to more frequent “ratcheting up” of the targets (“nationally determined contributions” or NDCs), including draft text to update NDCs every year would inject more urgency into the Paris Agreement implementation.  With every month that goes by, holding to 1.5 degrees becomes harder. Keeping 1.5 degrees within reach is a key requirement of COP26.

Everyone knows that kicking it down the road to COP27 without substantial progress here will be a failure in political and scientific terms. As climate campaigners and Green MPs, we are keenly aware that the eyes of the world are on Glasgow.  We do not expect the media’s interest to remain as focused in November 2022 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt for COP27.

So at this mid-point in the final week, the flash has not altogether disappeared. Star turns from former president Barack Obama and a surprisingly effective presence of a large puppet of a Syrian refugee, Little Amal, attracted crowds and reporters. No doubt more celebrities of all kinds will be dropping by for the final push.

The strength of COP26 agreements will be measured by removal of square brackets indicating the lack of agreement. More than 30 years ago in another context, saving the ozone layer, a young delegate told the negotiators, “Our future is in your square brackets.”

That is truer than ever. Now, more than ever, we need political leadership.  Canada could still play that role  – put the words “phase out fossil fuels” in the text, put money on the table for Loss and Damage (to provide more financing to countries devastated by extreme climate events) and stand up for 1.5 degrees by moving the final agreement to its most ambitious.   And, then of course, we have to go home and deliver.

UPDATE:  In crunch time, things move fast. After initially filing this letter with Policy, US Special Climate envoy John Kerry and China’s top climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua made a surprise announcement.  Details are sparse, but in a clear effort to create new momentum in the last hours of COP26, China and the US pledged to work together to hold on to 1.5 degrees. Xie told reporters that on climate change “there is more agreement between China and US than divergence.”

Despite the lack of detail, I found the prepared statement encouraging if, for nothing else its salutary reference to “this decisive decade.” We run a real risk that targets of “net zero by 2050” become a threat to real climate action by missing the hard reality that massive cuts are needed in the next few years.

At this writing, negotiations continue into late hours.

More soon.

Contributing Writer Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, is the former leader of the Green Party of Canada. She is filing for Policy on a regular basis from COP26 in Glasgow.