The best and most succinct speaker on what was or was not achieved in COP26 was, in my opinion John Ashton on the BBC Radio 4 today programme early this morning. He is a former U.K. Climate Change Envoy.
It’s worth listening to. So I’ve transcribed it here:
‘Well, it is obviously a relief that a deal was landed…it’s a significant deal. It’s not a game-changer…although it could become one if we all get our act together over the next year…to say it is a game-changer now is a little hubristic…it seems to me…a lot depends on what the U.K. presidency does going forward…
…I think it’s really important to start with two BUTS however…
…if I burn your house down I have to make it right. That is natural justice, we are taught that as children. That’s what the frontline vulnerable countries effectively were saying…in Glasgow you saw how upset they were at the end…their anger was justified…and that needs to be sorted out really quickly. They have a legitimate grievance because the rich countries were putting their fingers in their ears and saying la, la, la in effect.
So nothing is a higher priority over the next year under the U.K. presidency than getting that diplomacy moving forward…
…a very good start for that for the U.K. would be to say in the next budget or announce NOW that in the next budget we are going to reverse the aid cut, because that would give us a diplomatic platform for that…
Secondly, I’ve heard a lot of people of my generation saying now that this shows Greta Thunberg is wrong it’s not all blah, blah, blah…and I think they’re wrong actually…they say ‘look how much we’ve done’…
…I think that’s the wrong response to Greta Thunberg and other inspirational activists like Vanessa Makete for example they say ‘look how far we’ve come’…
Greta Thunberg can say:
‘But it’s taken you thirty years to get this far, that’s far too slow and look how far you’ve got to go now in much less time…’
…and we should be saying in humility ‘O.K. how do we combine our experience with your moral authority to get the bus moving faster…?’
TWO quick points on why it is significant…
…the writing is now on the wall for coal, oil and gas…the cost of capital for those infrastructure investments is going to go up…
Interviewer: ‘But is the writing really on the wall for those industries when China changed that crucial wording at the last minute to phasing down… ? Given that China is building a coal fired power station one every week?
John continues:
I think any wise theologian will tell you that when you face a life and death struggle the key thing, the hardest battle is to put a name to your adversary. We have done that…it has taken us thirty years to do that…is extraordinary but we have put a name to it…it is coal, it is oil, it’s gas…
and that’s the biggest thing we still have to do…they (these industries) didn’t believe we were serious up until this point..but they had better believe it now, otherwise they are going to end up with a lot of stranded assets…
…even in China and India that signal is going to get stronger, not weaker…
Interviewer: And what about President of China’s own position do you think? We hear that he was very much involved in internal politics…? Defenders of him would say has very much a personal commitment to the environment…?
John continues:
…there is a lot of politics involved…what is going on in China at the moment…
Just one other point about the process first…
We are now in emergency session…we have said we are going to come back next year, implicitly now every year…with stronger plans and pledges…we have to man that very big responsibility for that U.K. presidency…
It’s reasonable for China to say:
‘You can’t say to us that you are going to keep your lights on, but ours are going to go out…’
But at the same time China can’t say to the most vulnerable countries:
‘We are going to cling to coal, even if it means you are going to go under the sea or whatever..’
…And so really hard questions for China…China has made itself accountable by what it happened at the end in Glasgow…’
Interviewer: Just one last quick point…You said the U.K. needs to reverse the cut to the aid budget. Anything else we should be doing?
John:
Yes. We should announce an urgent audit by the office for budget responsibility, independent of the Treasury into our own fossil fuel subsidies…where we’ve said they are going to be phased out globally…we want to put a plan on the table…to phase out ours…with a timetable…we need to no more coal…no more new oil fields…no more Heathrow expansion and climate change at the heart of our future trade deals…
Six point plan.
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