What just happened at COP26?

High hope and expectations? but a reality check...

On Nov 2021, we saw the conclusion of one of the?most critically important global events attended by many of the world leaders and their delegations focussing on critical decisions that are now having ripple effects across the globe. Everyone will be impacted – small nations, developed countries, industry, businesses and societies worldwide.?

The key question is have these leaders done enough to avert the worst impacts of climate change by sticking to limiting anthropomorphic temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius? I’m afraid the answer from independent scientists is a resounding NO ! However, was the event a write-off? Again, not quite. There is room for optimism but the window to make substantive change is closing fast so time is of the essence.?

COP 26 ran for two full?weeks where we saw intensive climate negotiations between delegations?from 197 countries ranging from the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emissions like China, the USA and the European Union, right through to the small island nations who've contributed?the least to our climate emergency but who are already suffering the worst of the consequences.??

The UK Presidency had been hard at work trying to bring all parties to the negotiating table and to enhance pledges + commitments made back in the 2015 Paris Climate accords (COP21).

The main goal of the conference was to reach?agreement on what each country needs to do?to prevent average global surface temperatures?reaching more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.?

Main headlines

As with most things in life, expectations were running high, but reality of securing binding commitments was always going to be difficult because of a combination of geo-politics, economics and resistance to change of the status quo by vested interests, especially by the developed countries in the global north.?

Even though COP26 was not a runaway success, I’d still say it was incrementally important as there was some signs of progress, although there was a lot of fudging and greenwashing going on as well. In fact, some of the decisions were just downright ugly and may be reformed in future COP26 as the grip of Climate Crisis takes hold.?

India’s 2070 Net Zero Pledge

For instance, it was great to see India agreed for the first time ever to set any kind of net zero target and also committing to 50% renewables by 2030. This is progress and it is certainly better?than no commitment at all. Bad news: Prime Minister Modi’s proposed net zero carbon date of 2070 really does miss a key goal of the COP 26 summit by 20?years. The worst part of this is that the Climate Crisis is likely to affect large populations in that part of the world who will have to contend with erratic monsoon weather patterns, extreme weather events and the impact that will have on social, governance, environmental and overall health and well-being of ordinary citizens. Unfortunately, the inequity of Climate Crisis means that India will be on the front line on the ongoing battle between traditional economic growth and environmental responsibility, although it need not be that way.?

Some may argue that was a clever move by the Indian premier giving him some leverage to demand a greater level of funding from the richer nations given that India is not responsible for historical emissions. However, taking a position like this from a country with well over a billion inhabitants seems like a very dangerous game to play with people's livelihoods and environmental security.?

I’m hoping economic and social drivers will bring forward the Net Zero date from 2070 to 2050 or earlier, simply because it will make more sense to pursue growth based on renewable energy sources and avoid losses from stranded fossil fuel assets. Business will drive the agenda forward based on purely economic incentives as the cost of Solar and Wind power decreases displacing traditional coal dependent model.?

Reverse deforestation by 2030

The Glasgow declaration on forests and land use is a pledge to end or significantly reduce?deforestation by 2030. More than $19 billion?has been set aside to help drive the initiative?and the fact that it was signed by Brazil Indonesia and Russia would suggest a positive breakthrough. But history?shows us a poor track record of countries sticking?to these sorts of pledges.?

Back in 2014 a similar landmark agreement called the New York declaration?on forests promised to cut deforestation by 50% by 2020 and end it completely by 2030.??Since then, there's been an increase in global deforestation contributing an estimated 23% to total global carbon dioxide emissions under United Nations rules man-made plantations count as forests even though they contain none of the rich ecosystems and biodiversity?of indigenous forests.?

Environmental groups worry that a big chunk of the 19.2 billion dollars?allocated to the Glasgow declaration will be used to tear down existing forestry land to create more?of these plantations for things like palm oil, paper and wood pellets, instead of preserving?and protecting the trees and plants and wildlife that are now so critically endangered.???

And how about this curveball - the declaration's?terminology of deforestation refers to permanent loss of forests when land is fully converted to some other use like agriculture or development.??It's almost completely silent on the role of traditional logging?in driving forest degradation from within.?Under this agreement loggers can still disappear?deep inside a rainforest like the Amazon and destroy forest biodiversity and carbon stocks, resulting in almost the same devastating impacts as true deforestation.?

Cutting Methane by 30%

You probably don't need me to tell you that?methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas.?Over a 20-year period it's about 80 times?more powerful than carbon dioxide. It comes?from landfills and livestock, and it leaks out of oil and gas wells and from the pipelines?that stretch over vast distances across countries and continents. It also gets deliberately released?by well operators through the processes of venting and flaring. Atmospheric methane has caused about?30 percent of global warming since pre-industrial times and concentrations have soared since 2007,?mainly as a result of the fracking boom.?

So,?the global methane pledge signed at COP 26?is good news, right? Well here again there are just a couple of minor wrinkles that you might?want to be aware of. To start with there are some notable absentees from the pledge including China and India, as well as the vast landmass of Russia - a country with the most notoriously leaky fossil fuel infrastructure on the planet.?And then there's the actual numbers. According to?climate expert Myles Allen of Oxford University, even the most ambitious plans for cutting methane emissions in the short term will only avoid between 0.1 and 0.2 degrees of warming by 2050.??

Compare that with current CO2 levels which are driving about 0.2 degrees of warming every decade!??In an interview with New Scientist, Allen said unless we get CO2 under control action on methane?is kind of moot... "it worries me", he said "that it’s being touted as the great success of COP26".?

Climate Finance?

One of the most contentious issues in global?climate discussions is always finance and this COP conference was no exception. Back in?2009, the rich nations agreed to put in place at?least $100 bn of support finance?for developing nations every year by 2020.??

While this sounds like a lot of cash, it's barely more?than a rounding error compared to the Multi trillion?dollars the world spends on subsidizing fossil fuels. Even with that in mind, the rich nations haven't even managed to step up to the place and this is long overdue. At this COP the goal?posts were moved again, and everyone promised they would definitely get to the full hundred billion?no later than 2023. Why not do it right now???

Right now, many Finance Ministers of the global?north keep saying that "We are struggling each year to find money due to COVID recovery" is not an excuse. It’s funny how money instantly appeared at the start of the covered crisis isn't it? And how the USA alone managed to find almost 800 billion dollars?to spend on its defence budget in 2020, and how in?the last five years 2.5 trillion dollars have been found to subsidise the fossil fuel industry.?

We also see that "2.5 trillion dollars in the last five years, six years went into subsidies for fossil fuel,?that's a definition of insanity". Sovereign?states have always had mechanisms to generate cash?when they really need to. It's?just a question of prioritization,?and apparently the hundreds of millions of people in vulnerable countries in the global south?just haven't shuffled their way up to the top of the priority list yet.??

Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero or GFANZ

Commercial investors got involved in week one?of the conference when ex-governor of the Bank?of England Mark Carney announced the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero or GFANZ “This includes over 450 major financial institutions from 45 countries who are committing to manage their balance sheets - balance sheets that total over 130 trillion?dollars - in line with net zero. So, make no mistake, the money is here if the world wants?to use it."?

According to the unclimatesummit.org COP 26 fact check page though; Carney's numbers?just don't add up. They include every kind of fund imaginable including people's mortgages and?credit card balances which will obviously never be part of helping out developing nations. Genuine?private climate finance was estimated to be about 340 billion dollars in 2020. That is more than?three times better than the pathetic collective efforts of our western governments but it's still only 0.3 percent of the number that Mark Carney claimed to be "here if the world wants to use it".??

The Rainforest Action Network also points out that the 93 banks that signed the GFANZ?pledge had also provided no less than 575 billion dollars of lending and underwriting to the fossil?fuel industry just in 2020 alone. Rainforest Action Network finance director Tom Picken?said, "the disconnect between climate commitments and boardroom decisions is staggering".

Phase down Coal

So, what about coal then? The dirtiest and most damaging of all fossil fuels.?Well, more than 40 countries including heavy users like Canada, Poland, South Korea,?Ukraine, Indonesia and Vietnam pledged to phase?out their use of coal for electricity generation?with the larger economies getting there in the 2030s and the smaller economies in the 2040s.??

But expert assessments have found that for the world to stay within 1.5 degrees Celsius of?warming all developed economies would have to phase out cool completely before 2030 and not?at some vague time during the 30s and 40s.?And guess who didn't sign up to the pledge.??Well among many others it was of course good old Australia, China, India and the United States.?

Vehicle Emissions

On vehicle emissions we did get a?commitment from car makers including Ford,?GM, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo?to end sales of new cars producing greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 in major markets and by 2040?everywhere else in the world. But the two largest?car manufacturers in the world, VW and Toyota?didn't sign the pledge, nor did two other car giants Renault-Nissan and Hyundai-Kia.??

And the declaration didn't get the backing of the United States, China or Germany either. So yet?again despite warm words about the EV revolution, progress is still being hindered by major players.?

Beyond Oil and Gas (BOGA)

One of the rare positives over the two-week?talking shop was this press conference led?by Denmark and Costa Rica. They announced a partnership of 12 countries called the Beyond?Oil and Gas Alliance or BOGA. It represents the first state-led initiative of its type, and it?recognizes that there is no future for oil and gas in a 1.5-degree world.?

As the largest oil producer?in Europe, Denmark led the way by announcing it’d cancel all future licensing rounds for?new oil exploration and drilling and end all its existing fossil fuel production completely by 2050. But as usual the world's biggest oil and gas producers were nowhere to be seen and even the?COP 26 hosts the United Kingdom declined to join the alliance.?

All we got from our UK government was a?wishy-washy statement saying there would likely be an ongoing but diminishing demand for oil and gas,?so the UK could not commit to phasing out the energy sources entirely.

US-China cooperation?

The announcement in week two from the US and China pledging to work more closely?together on climate change issues came as something of a surprise and was certainly?very welcome... "the United States and China have no shortage of differences, but on climate,?on climate cooperation is the only way to get this job done" But quite what that'll look like?in the coming months and years is anyone’s guess. And despite the fact that it produces?nearly 15 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions, there was no discussion at all?about animal agriculture and meat consumption anywhere on the official delegates agenda.??

COP26 drafts and final statements

So, as we reached the end of the two-week conference and after an extra day of?frantic negotiations a final draft of the COP 26 declaration was signed off by all 197 countries.?Some of the wording was watered down as usual of course. This sentence on fossil fuels in the first draft for example became this sentence in the second and third drafts and then in a very last-minute intervention from India the words "phase out" were changed to "phase down".??

Believe it or not though this is the?first ever COP declaration in 26 years?to even have any mention of fossil fuels in it at all. Big oil gas and coal producing countries,?especially Saudi Arabia, Russia and Australia have always managed to have any language about?fossil fuels completely removed from previous COP agreements. And they tried very hard to keep?those references out this year too. There were more than 500 lobbyists from the fossil fuel?industry at this COP. That's twice as many?delegates as any country at the conference.??

But it looks like those lobbyists have finally found themselves on the wrong side of history.??The fact that this sentence survived at all should be taken as a minor victory and it arguably opens?the floodgates for much stronger language at COP?27 in Egypt next year. There were other little?wins in the text too. There was a commitment from all developed nations to double their financial?assistance for adaptation in developing nations.?

While that only moves those contributions from?utterly unacceptable to just about the bare minimum, it does at least represent progress. There's also a reference to increased recognition of loss and damage in the text to account for damages to developing nations from the historical effects of climate change?caused by developed nations, and it was eventually agreed that countries would come back?with strengthened nationally determined contributions or NDCs?.

COP27 Egypt in 2022

At next year's COP meeting in Egypt, instead of?waiting five more years as was previously agreed.?Despite these baby steps though the sum total of all the herculean negotiating efforts of?the hundreds of extremely dedicated country representatives at COP 26 was not enough to put the world on track to get anywhere near limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

According?to the team at Climate Action Tracker, who held?a brutally frank press conference from inside COP26 during week two, current global policies?and actions fall far short of the NDCs agreed at Paris in 2015 and they're currently taking us to?at least 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of this century.?

In the unlikely event that?every single country gets back on course to meet their 2030 NDC targets then we'd still be on track??or about 2.4 degrees of warming, and if in the even more hopeful event that all submitted and?binding long term targets were achieved that would limit warming to 2.1 degrees.?

And if every single?country met every single new pledge and target that they all frantically published just prior to?or during this conference then that would still only limit warming to 1.8 degrees. The Climate?Action Tracker team very politely call that last option the optimistic scenario, but they?certainly don't regard it as the likely one.?

As a recent IPCC report highlighted, if we're to stand any chance of keeping additional warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius then?Greenhouse gas emissions will have to be halved by 2030. During lockdown year we reduced emissions by?5.4 percent, so basically, we need to do that every single year for the next nine years?and then keep doing it every year after that.?But nothing like that is happening.?

In fact, as?the world has started to bounce back from COVID in 2021 we've seen the second largest increase in?greenhouse gas emissions in recorded history.?So, does all this mean we should collectively?all get thoroughly despondent? No. It means we should all collectively get thoroughly determined.??

Conclusion?

We all know what changes we need to make in our own lives so get on and make those changes now.??Its time to get involved with constructive action into the global movement to put relentless pressure on our political and?business leaders to take far more urgent action than what was pledged at this latest summit.?I just completed my Climate Reality Project training recently and that was an eye opener on what's really been happening over the last 40 years of relentlessly high emissions, extreme weather events at higher frequency and intensity, environmental carnage combined with biodiversity loss due to human activity.

The chief European Union climate negotiator, Frans Timmerman, managed to sum up the magnitude of our?global emergency quite neatly during his speech at one of the many COP26 meetings when he held up a photograph of his one-year-old grandson case and said this “when [my grandson] will be 31 when?we're in 2050, and it's quite a thought to?understand that if we succeed, he'll be living?in a world that's liveable, he'll be living in an economy that is clean with air that is clean,?at peace with his environment. If we fail, and I mean fail now in the next couple of years, then he will fight with other human beings for water and food".?

The fight is already underway in many parts of the global south but if our society doesn't change radically and rapidly?then it'll be coming to all of us at some point in the next couple of decades.??

How Digital Innovation scale up to combat the Climate Crisis?

In my next blog, I will describe how IBM is helping our clients with new creative digital solutions that meet the UN SDGs goals. We are driving relentless innovation that pervades entire organisations, that take the conversation from theory into real-world practical actions that have quantifiable environmental benefits, combined with benefits for people and businesses.

With over 50 years environmental sterwardship and reporting of our environmental responsibility policies, we achieved first inaugural Terra Carta award by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales at COP26.

So, that was a very proud moment for IBM to be awarded this award as shows the trust and transparency by which we operate in IBM. We have added 21 new environmental goals as part of our reporting and more importantly and we will achieve Net Zero by 2030 (without offsets).?

With our new Hybrid Cloud and AI platforms and solutions, we are in prime position to enable ourselves and our clients to achieve the goal of the Sustainable Intelligent Enterprise – Sustainability-by-design at the speed of Digital.