The most exclusionary COP ever…

At COP26, world leaders and climate activists have repeated again and again that, at best, it will very soon be too late to reverse the effects of climate change, and, at worst, major irreversible damage is already done. It’s perhaps ironic, then, that this COP was a year overdue, originally scheduled for November 2020 but postponed because of Covid. While we are far from out of the woods of the pandemic, expanded testing capacities and the Covid vaccine allowed COP to go ahead this year.

However, COP26 has been subject to intense scrutiny from climate activists for excluding vulnerable groups, particularly in the context of the pandemic. At the Fridays For Future protest of the first COP week, Greta Thunberg called it the ‘most exclusionary COP ever’ (video on Twitter). The pandemic has contributed to an underrepresentation of participants from the developing world due to lower vaccination rates and high travel costs. This is particularly noticeable in the number of attending civil society organisations, who play a vital role in holding their governments accountable on site during the negotiations. Two thirds of the civil society organisations that usually send delegates to COPs did not make it to Glasgow this year.

The launch of an online platform that allows participants to join the talks virtually was one of the measures taken to make COP26 as Covid safe as possible, but its practical implementation at COP26 faced serious criticism. Among critics was Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), an advocacy group that put forward aggregate demands by the African continent to reject article 6.2 and 6.4, two of the most contentious passages which outline the use of market mechanisms to combat climate change. As of 10pm on Nov 12, debates about article 6 were ongoing. CAPPA’s representative Aderonke Ige from Nigeria reported to the Guardian feeling ‘disappointed and unfulfilled’ (The Guardian, Nov 8 2021) after experiencing technical glitches that did not allow her to access the virtual talks of the African group negotiators. Even if these are genuine technical mishaps, and not the result of negligence or even deliberate attempts at excluding the most vulnerable, they pose a real risk of creating deals that marginalise the most affected countries, and alienating them from future talks.

Issues in accessing the virtual platform continue a long tradition of exclusion of marginalised communities from debates about climate change, which can be linked to the number of murdered indigenous activists in the past year, which is at a record high– roughly one in three attacks on climate activists in 2021 targeted indigenous people (Global Witness, Sep 13 2021). Many indigenous activists feel silenced by the COP negotiations, despite being recognised as a formal group in 2001 and guaranteed permission to observe and lobby negotiators. Indigenous groups have repeatedly stressed that ending the extraction of fossil fuels is the only way to stop climate change, and many feel let down by conversations that centre around carbon offsetting (relying on mass reforestation to ‘balance out’ carbon emissions), pointing out that reforestation programmes often dispossess indigenous land and that there is not enough land for reforestation to be viable. On the last day, indigenous activists staged a walk-out; many did so to bring forward their demands, but some do not believe that there is any space at COP26 for indigenous agendas, like Ta’Kaiya Blaney of the Tla A’min Nation, who said about COP that “it is an illusion constructed to save the capitalist economy rooted in resource extraction and colonialism. I didn’t come here to fix the agenda – I came here to disrupt it.” (The Guardian, Nov 12 2021) 

In anticipation of accessibility issues that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable groups, there was a long debate about whether COP26 should be online. It’s easy to see the appeal of a carbon-neutral virtual climate conference, instead of one that flies delegates in from all over. Emissions attributed to COP26 are approximately double the emissions of COP25, while Peru offset all emissions of COP20 in Lima (NYT, Nov 12 2021). But one advantage of an in-person COP is that all eyes have been on Glasgow. 100,000 protesters marched at the biggest protest on November 11; the two weeks were filled with dozens of COP related events, including many organised by societies on our campus; and while Airbnb prices soaring to prohibitively high levels contributed to the ridiculous shortage of student flats this semester, they are indicative of just how much attention COP26 has had. I am unsure about whether a virtual COP would stand a chance of achieving any real change when it’s already doubtful that COP26 will in spite of the attention it has garnered.

UK activists, who have profited from the in-person COP in terms of their ability to organise and mobilise, hope that at least the UK will take more effective climate action. Unfortunately, instead of bringing us detailed policy commitments to match the UK’s ambitious emissions reduction targets, UK negotiators are still talking about a ‘gradual transition’ to low-carbon energy, refusing to fix a date to phase out oil and gas (Bloomberg, Nov 9 2021). 

Does this reduce COP26 to a mere greenwashing exercise? It might be too early to tell, as the actions countries take to fulfil their pledges are more important than non-binding promises made at COP. What is clear however, is that success is contingent on listening to those most affected by climate change. In this sense, the question as to whether future COPs and other climate talks should be made carbon-neutral by shifting them fully online is without doubt worth considering. But whatever form future COPs take on, we only stand a chance of stopping climate change if we include the voices of indigenous communities and states most vulnerable to it. Greta Thunberg is highlighted by many as an example of grassroot leadership, but if leaders truly care about grassroot climate activists, they must create more space for them at official talks, particularly for indigenous and developing nations.