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Frans Timmermans:An hour ago, my son, Mark sent me a picture
Frans Timmermans:of my grandson, Case, who's one year old. I was thinking, Case
Frans Timmermans:will be 31 when we're in 2050.
Amy Martin:This is Frans Timmermans, representative from
Amy Martin:the European Union at COP26. The UN Climate Conference held in
Amy Martin:Glasgow, Scotland.
Frans Timmermans:And it's quite a thought to understand that if
Frans Timmermans:we succeed, he'll be living in a world that's livable. He'll be
Frans Timmermans:living in an economy that is clean, with air that is clean,
Frans Timmermans:at peace with his environment. If we fail, and I mean fail now,
Frans Timmermans:in the next couple of years, he will fight with other human
Frans Timmermans:beings for water and food. That's the stark reality we
Frans Timmermans:face. So 1.5 degrees is about avoiding a future for our
Frans Timmermans:children and grandchildren that is unlivable. I might not reach
Frans Timmermans:2050, probably won't, but he will be there as a young man,
Frans Timmermans:and I want him to live peaceful, prosperous life like I wanted
Frans Timmermans:for everybody's children and grandchildren in this room. This
Frans Timmermans:is personal. This is not about politics.
Amy Martin:As Frans Timmermans delivered this speech, he was
Amy Martin:holding his phone up so all the delegates in this big hall could
Amy Martin:see his young grandson's face projected onto the giant screens
Amy Martin:at the front of the room. I was in the back of the hall, behind
Amy Martin:the long rows of people sitting at microphones labeled with
Amy Martin:their country's names, and I was wondering how these delegates
Amy Martin:from almost every nation in the world were feeling sitting
Amy Martin:there. I came to this conference to watch and listen and
Amy Martin:document, but they were here to act, to do exactly what
Amy Martin:Timmermans said, preserve a livable future on this planet.
Amy Martin:How did it feel to be here with that enormous weight on your
Amy Martin:shoulders to know that people all over the world are pinning
Amy Martin:their hopes for a pathway out of the climate crisis on you.
Amy Martin:Welcome to Threshold. I'm Amy Martin, and it's time to return
Amy Martin:to where we started this season, the United Nations climate
Amy Martin:talks. The UN climate talks are a lot of different things.
Amy Martin:They're confusing, they're bureaucratic, they're inspiring
Amy Martin:and boring and infuriating and exhilarating. They're also the
Amy Martin:only thing we've got. Currently, this is the only existing
Amy Martin:structure for dealing with climate change at a scale that
Amy Martin:matches the problem. That is to say, globally. There are two
Amy Martin:primary reasons why we need an international system for dealing
Amy Martin:with climate change. One is physical, the other political.
Amy Martin:The physics side is actually the easiest to understand. The
Amy Martin:atmosphere doesn't adhere to national borders. It's like a
Amy Martin:well we're all drinking from and when carbon emissions get dumped
Amy Martin:into that well, they impact everyone, no matter where they
Amy Martin:were released. So that's one problem the UN climate talks are
Amy Martin:trying to solve, getting everyone to agree to stop
Amy Martin:polluting the well. But the tricky thing is, dumping carbon
Amy Martin:into the atmosphere makes countries rich. So although it's
Amy Martin:in everyone's collective interest to keep that
Amy Martin:atmospheric well water clean, individually, there's a strong
Amy Martin:incentive to keep emitting and this is where the politics of
Amy Martin:the UN climate talks come into play. There's only a certain
Amy Martin:amount of carbon that we can burn before sending the climate
Amy Martin:into a catastrophic hothouse state, and some countries have
Amy Martin:used up a lot more of that carbon budget than others.
Amy Martin:Countries like the United States and much of Europe that started
Amy Martin:emitting early and built big, strong economies as a result. At
Amy Martin:the other extreme, are countries that are very small, very poor,
Amy Martin:or both, that have added almost nothing to the problem. And then
Amy Martin:there's a shifting pool of emerging economies, countries
Amy Martin:like China and India that have recently joined the carbon
Amy Martin:burning party and aren't eager to leave it. So how do we manage
Amy Martin:all of these conflicting needs and desires? How can we wean
Amy Martin:ourselves off of this incredibly powerful form of energy in a way
Amy Martin:that's fair, and do it quickly enough to save ourselves from
Amy Martin:catastrophe? These are the questions that make
Amy Martin:decarbonizing our world the biggest, most complicated,
Amy Martin:highest stakes group project humanity has ever known, and the
Amy Martin:UN climate talks are the forum where that project is happening.
Amy Martin:If they succeed, we'll have a stable climate and hope for a
Amy Martin:new post-climate crisis era. And if these talks fail, well, we
Amy Martin:simply cannot allow them to fail.
Unknown:We cannot negotiate with nature. We cannot negotiate
Unknown:with the planet.
Unknown:Dr. Adelle Thomas: It's a very long process, and it seems like
Unknown:you're just spinning your wheels, but eventually something
Unknown:comes out of it.
Antonio Guterres:Enough of burning and drilling and mining
Antonio Guterres:our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.
Tina Stege:1.5 is non negotiable. The safety of my
Tina Stege:children and yours hangs in the balance.
Amy Martin:Nick and I just got our official badges, and what
Amy Martin:are we doing now, Nick?
Nick Mott:We are walking to our first location in the actual
Nick Mott:conference. So we're inside, and it feels super exciting to like
Nick Mott:be in the conference. We're officially official!
Amy Martin:Producer Nick Mott and I have just arrived inside
Amy Martin:the Blue Zone, the heart of the United Nations Climate
Amy Martin:Conference held in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021.
Amy Martin:Everybody's masked, everybody's been tested for covid, and
Amy Martin:everybody's walking the same direction, and most people are
Amy Martin:dressed quite nice, including us. We look stunning, but I do
Amy Martin:say so myself.
Amy Martin:After going through the security check-in process, basically your
Amy Martin:standard airport security routine, we get funneled into a
Amy Martin:long tented walkway leading into the main conference area. We
Amy Martin:can't see out. It's a tunnel of white canvas above us, and on
Amy Martin:both sides, it feels kind of like an umbilical cord between
Amy Martin:the outside world and the highly protected pop-up city of the
Amy Martin:conference.
Erika Janik:When we were coming in from the entryway, I felt
Erika Janik:like I was in ET like walking through the white tunnels.
Erika Janik:That's all I was thinking about.
Amy Martin:That's Erika Janik. Nick and I met up with her and
Amy Martin:another colleague, Eva Kalaea, in the main conference area.
Eva Kalea:A ton of people, just a wall of people walking towards
Eva Kalea:us, a lot of suits.
Erika Janik:So many suits.
Eva Kalea:I'm experiencing some confusion over which side of the
Eva Kalea:hallway I'm supposed to be walking on. And that seems to be
Eva Kalea:like a shared confusion among everyone.
Amy Martin:I'm wanting to walk really fast. And I think it
Amy Martin:might be because then I feel like I look like I know what I'm
Amy Martin:doing, not because I actually know what I'm doing.
Eva Kalea:Yes, yes. I feel like it's also the energy. It's like
Eva Kalea:a very bustling, urban type of energy, and you just have to
Eva Kalea:match it.
Amy Martin:Close to 40,000 people attended COP26.
Amy Martin:Representatives from almost every country on the planet are
Amy Martin:here, even the most isolated country in the world, North
Amy Martin:Korea, sent someone to this conference. The diversity of
Amy Martin:faces and languages is pretty mesmerizing. It makes me want to
Amy Martin:just sit down and watch the stream of humanity flow by. But
Amy Martin:at the same time, I'm eager to dive in and figure this
Amy Martin:conference out, starting with understanding where I am
Amy Martin:exactly.
Amy Martin:It's like being in a giant mall, sort of, or like an airport
Amy Martin:terminal?
Nick Mott:Giant food court, with heads of state, presumably
Nick Mott:everywhere.
Amy Martin:I head out to do some exploring after the ET
Amy Martin:tunnel and the airport terminal/food court, I find the
Amy Martin:pavilions a loud, chatty area where countries and
Amy Martin:organizations are set up like a trade show with booths and
Amy Martin:displays advertising their climate projects. Next to that
Amy Martin:are the country offices, a warren of temporary cubicles
Amy Martin:with blank walls and people moving about, talking in hushed
Amy Martin:voices, wearing serious expressions. Then I come upon
Amy Martin:the huge plenary halls where all the highest profile speeches get
Amy Martin:made, and radiating out from there is a big collection of
Amy Martin:meeting rooms where a lot of the actual work of the conference
Amy Martin:gets done. Reporters are allowed into many parts of the
Amy Martin:conference, but sometimes all of the sudden we weren't,
Amy Martin:especially during the first few days, the World Leaders Summit,
Amy Martin:when more than 120 heads of state are on site, getting
Amy Martin:shepherded through the space, surrounded by a phalanx of
Amy Martin:security and support staff.
Amy Martin:I've been pushed aside by entourages numerous times. Just
Amy Martin:big groups of people will suddenly start pushing through.
Amy Martin:That's Erika again, and I was having that same experience. I'd
Amy Martin:be walking along and all of a sudden, hey, there's Mary
Amy Martin:Robinson, former president of Ireland and UN High Commissioner
Amy Martin:for Human Rights, or Christiana Figueres, one of the key
Amy Martin:architects of the Paris Agreement. The presence of so
Amy Martin:many big names helps to underscore the importance of the
Amy Martin:UN climate talks. But these are not the people doing the bulk of
Amy Martin:the work here.
Amy Martin:Dr. Saleemul Huq: Well, I think the main message for today is
Amy Martin:that there's going to be a whole bunch of heads of government,
Amy Martin:including the US president here. They'll make speeches, they'll
Amy Martin:have a photograph with Boris Johnson, and they'll fly away.
Amy Martin:Much of the global media will fly away with them and think
Amy Martin:that it's over. It isn't, it's just starting. It's going to
Amy Martin:start day after tomorrow, when they've gone and it's going to
Amy Martin:last for two weeks.
Amy Martin:This is Dr. Saleemul Huq. You might remember him from
Amy Martin:our first episode this season. He's the director of the
Amy Martin:International Center for Climate Change and Development at the
Amy Martin:Independent University Bangladesh. I interviewed Salim
Amy Martin:remotely before the conference, and he'd agreed to let me follow
Amy Martin:his journey here at COP26.
Amy Martin:Dr. Saleemul Huq: Journalists and their audiences need to be
Amy Martin:educated on the complicated stuff that climate change is.
Amy Martin:I agree with Saleem, that's why we're here. Despite
Amy Martin:the incredibly high stakes of the UN climate conferences, I
Amy Martin:think most people have only a very vague understanding of how
Amy Martin:they work. I know I did. So let's start with a quick rundown
Amy Martin:of the origin story of these talks. In the late 1980s, as the
Amy Martin:world started waking up to the climate crisis, it became clear
Amy Martin:that there were no existing institutions or processes for
Amy Martin:dealing with this global problem. So people decided to
Amy Martin:try to make those institutions. In 1992, at a major gathering in
Amy Martin:Brazil called the Earth Summit, more than 150 countries signed
Amy Martin:something called the United Nations Framework Convention on
Amy Martin:Climate Change, or UNF triple C. You can think of it like a
Amy Martin:special wing of the United Nations devoted to working on
Amy Martin:climate. Almost every country in the world is part of the UNFCCC
Amy Martin:now, as well as some non country organizations like the European
Amy Martin:Union, when countries agree to join this effort, they become
Amy Martin:"parties to the convention," and then they start coming to these
Amy Martin:annual gatherings we call "COPS." That stands for
Amy Martin:Conference of the Parties. The overall goal of each cop is to
Amy Martin:make progress on climate, to get all countries moving in the same
Amy Martin:direction toward a decarbonized world in an equitable way based
Amy Martin:on the best scientific information available. But of
Amy Martin:course, every country has a different level of commitment to
Amy Martin:that progress and its own idea of what progress looks like and
Amy Martin:how we should get there. So they negotiate, and then they
Amy Martin:formalize the results of those negotiations in the documents
Amy Martin:that come out of these conferences, the Kyoto Protocol,
Amy Martin:the Bali Action Plan, the Cancun Agreements. The first COP was
Amy Martin:held in Germany in 1995 and 26 years later, here we are in
Amy Martin:Glasgow at COP26. Saleem has been to every one of those COPS,
Amy Martin:including the watershed Paris conference in 2015 when the
Amy Martin:world finally coalesced around a goal: holding the global
Amy Martin:temperature rise to well below two degrees Celsius over
Amy Martin:pre-industrial levels, aiming for no more than 1.5.
Amy Martin:Dr. Saleemul Huq: They rose to the occasion, and we have the
Amy Martin:Paris Agreement. It's about implementing that now. Glasgow
Amy Martin:is not a new agreement, it's about implementing what we
Amy Martin:agreed six years ago, and we're not on track to do that.
Amy Martin:Dr. Saleemul Huq: Well, the best possible outcome has
Amy Martin:The Paris Agreement identified a goal and created a
Amy Martin:framework for achieving it based on something called "nationally
Amy Martin:traditionally always been an incremental progress, and we
Amy Martin:determined contributions," or NDCs. This is a system in which
Amy Martin:countries make their own individual plans for reducing
Amy Martin:emissions and report on their progress at regular intervals.
Amy Martin:But heading into Glasgow, the NDCs were falling frighteningly
Amy Martin:short. The plans that countries had submitted, taken together,
Amy Martin:were projected to lead to 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming,
Amy Martin:almost twice the 1.5 goal. This would be utterly devastating for
Amy Martin:the whole world, and especially for island nations and countries
Amy Martin:with a lot of people living in areas prone to heat waves,
Amy Martin:drought, and coastal flooding. Bangladesh, where Saleem lives,
Amy Martin:is one of those countries, so he was not feeling especially
Amy Martin:cheery at the start of the conference, I asked him what he
Amy Martin:thought the best possible outcome here could be.
Amy Martin:have taken pride in having made some progress. But
Amy Martin:unfortunately, you know, this is not something that we compare
Amy Martin:ourselves with where we were last year and we did a little
Amy Martin:bit more this year. We have to compare ourselves with the
Amy Martin:climate. The climate has a say, and the climate is telling us
Amy Martin:we're not doing enough.
Amy Martin:This, of course, is not just Saleem's opinion. It's
Amy Martin:a widely understood fact. Here's UN Secretary General, Antonio
Amy Martin:Guterres.
Antonio Guterres:The last published report on national
Antonio Guterres:determined contributions showed that they would still condemn
Antonio Guterres:the world to a calamitous 2.7 degree increase. So as we open
Antonio Guterres:this much anticipated climate conference, we are still heading
Antonio Guterres:for climate disaster. Young people know it. Every country
Antonio Guterres:sees it. Small island, developing states and other
Antonio Guterres:vulnerable ones live it. And for them, failure is not an option.
Antonio Guterres:Failure is a death sentence.
Amy Martin:Guterres delivered this speech just down the hall
Amy Martin:from where Saleem and I were talking on that same day with
Amy Martin:leaders from around the world, listening, many of them nodding
Amy Martin:along. This is one of the things that's so confusing and
Amy Martin:frustrating about this global climate process, there's broad
Amy Martin:consensus on what the problem is- we're burning too much coal,
Amy Martin:oil and gas- and what needs to be done- transition to a
Amy Martin:renewable energy economy as quickly as possible. And yet,
Amy Martin:carbon emissions keep going up, and so do temperatures.
Antonio Guterres:The six years since the Paris climate
Antonio Guterres:agreement have been the six hottest years on record. Our
Antonio Guterres:addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink.
Antonio Guterres:We face a stark choice, either we stop it, or it stops us. And
Antonio Guterres:it's time to say: enough. Enough of brutalizing biodiversity,
Antonio Guterres:enough of killing ourselves with carbon, enough of treating
Antonio Guterres:nature like a toilet, enough of burning and drilling and mining
Antonio Guterres:our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.
Amy Martin:In 1995 when the first COP was held, we had about
Amy Martin:360 parts per million CO2 in our atmosphere. In 2021 that number
Amy Martin:had risen to 416 parts per million. The last time we had
Amy Martin:this much carbon dioxide in the air was millions of years ago,
Amy Martin:before we existed as a species. And what that means in terms of
Amy Martin:our lived experience is watching coral reefs die, seeing the
Amy Martin:cooling, stabilizing ice around our poles shatter and melt. And
Amy Martin:it means heartbreaking stories of more and more people killed
Amy Martin:in dramatic weather related disasters and slower moving, but
Amy Martin:no less deadly disruptions to our ability to provide for our
Amy Martin:own basic needs, for food, water and shelter. Antonio Guterres is
Amy Martin:right. We are digging the grave of human society, and almost
Amy Martin:every one of the 40,000 people here at this conference
Amy Martin:understands that. So what is taking so long after more than a
Amy Martin:quarter-century of these meetings, why haven't we stopped
Amy Martin:that atmospheric CO2 number from going up? What is the disconnect
Amy Martin:between the science and speeches and slogans and substantive
Amy Martin:climate action? We'll have more after this short break.
Amy Martin:Hey everybody, this is Erika Janik, Threshold's Managing
Amy Martin:Editor. Did you know that we have a Threshold newsletter? Our
Amy Martin:newsletter is a great way to stay connected to Threshold
Amy Martin:between seasons, find out what we're thinking about and what
Amy Martin:we're reading, listening to and watching. So subscribe to the
Amy Martin:Threshold newsletter today using the link in the show notes or on
Amy Martin:our website, thresholdpodcast.org.
John Pomeroy:Well, we're in the one of the main COP pavilions,
John Pomeroy:where we have pavilions on water, on the cryosphere, on
John Pomeroy:science, on the meteorology on the IPCC.
Nick Mott:Welcome back to Threshold, I'm Nick Mott and
Nick Mott:this is John Pomeroy, a professor and director of the
Nick Mott:Global Water Futures program at the University of Saskatchewan.
Nick Mott:I met him wandering around the pavilions at COP26. This is the
Nick Mott:trade show part of the conference that Amy mentioned.
Nick Mott:Booths lure in attendees with free coffee and food, and then
Nick Mott:try to keep you there with panels and guest speakers.
Nick Mott:People network and watch talks, and more than anything, learn.
John Pomeroy:It's heaving with people, heaving with scientists
John Pomeroy:and decision makers. And the conversations going on here are
John Pomeroy:amazing, really excellent ones on what's happening to our
John Pomeroy:oceans, what's happening to our forests, are they absorbing
John Pomeroy:enough carbon, and what's happening to our snow and ice
John Pomeroy:around the world.
Nick Mott:So who are all these tens of thousands of people that
Nick Mott:come to COP? People come here for all kinds of reasons.
Nick Mott:They're not all bureaucrats running from meeting to meeting
Nick Mott:and attendees fall into three broad categories. First is party
Nick Mott:delegates, which means the people actually doing the
Nick Mott:negotiating building the climate agreement that formed the heart
Nick Mott:of COP and also all the people supporting those people. Second
Nick Mott:is media, people like me running around the halls with
Nick Mott:microphones and cameras, and third is everybody else. The UN
Nick Mott:calls them observers, but if you get access to the Blue Zone as
Nick Mott:an observer, it doesn't mean you're one thing or part of one
Nick Mott:kind of organization. Lots of people get in by affiliating
Nick Mott:with an NGO or international organization. One of those
Nick Mott:people was Paul Wilson, a Klamath tribal member from
Nick Mott:Oregon who traveled here with a group called Rios to Rivers.
Paul Wilson:It takes a lot of privilege, a lot of funding and
Paul Wilson:a lot of logistical support to be able to enter the blue zone,
Paul Wilson:to be able to obtain credentials and get a visa and have your
Paul Wilson:travel and lodging paid for, to be able to be in this space at
Paul Wilson:all. Once in here, the access to decision makers is uncanny.
Nick Mott:When I talked with him, Paul had just presented a
Nick Mott:statement with his group pushing against one technology often
Nick Mott:advertised as a source of carbon, free-energy: dams. Dams
Nick Mott:disrupt ecosystems and displace communities, especially at the
Nick Mott:expense of indigenous people, the group argued. A
Nick Mott:representative of the UNFCCC Secretariat came out of her
Nick Mott:office to listen to their demands and officially enter the
Nick Mott:statement into the record.
Official:Very happy to see you here. Thank you, and I would
Official:pass on to the COP President.
Nick Mott:Paul had been navigating back and forth
Nick Mott:between the Blue Zone and the protests and speeches organized
Nick Mott:outside. Out there, outside the conference gates, he said he
Nick Mott:felt a real energy and camaraderie with the people
Nick Mott:trying to make change.
Paul Wilson:To see that visually and immediately in
Paul Wilson:person is always inspirational, because I feel less lonely and
Paul Wilson:then to have to come back into this sterile environment and and
Paul Wilson:exchange with with world leaders and policy makers that's a very
Paul Wilson:radical emotional roller coaster to go through.
Nick Mott:Around 11,000 people are at COP26 as observers. They
Nick Mott:come from all kinds of groups with a wide array of causes and
Nick Mott:agendas, from nuclear energy advocates to rainforest experts
Nick Mott:to researchers from universities. Once inside,
Nick Mott:observers do typical conferencey meet and mingle kind of stuff.
Nick Mott:But they can also lobby by scheduling meetings with
Nick Mott:decision makers. They can serve as watchdogs. They can quite
Nick Mott:literally observe, watch as the inner workings of COP unfold. I
Nick Mott:wanted to spend time with one group of observers to see how
Nick Mott:the conference works from their perspective. So early on in my
Nick Mott:time at COP, I wound my way through the labyrinth of country
Nick Mott:offices, through a heavy metal door and into a cramped, thin
Nick Mott:walled office where climate activists in their teens through
Nick Mott:early 30s were filling every available space of the room.
Nick Mott:They're members of a group called YOUNGO, which is
Nick Mott:dedicated specifically to making sure young people get a voice in
Nick Mott:the climate negotiations. They have more than 10,000 members
Nick Mott:all over the world. When I first met up with them, they were
Nick Mott:wrapping up a meeting where they were coordinating the day's
Nick Mott:activities. Young people have been some of the smartest,
Nick Mott:loudest, and most passionate voices on climate in recent
Nick Mott:years. Most often this is trying to make change from outside
Nick Mott:through protest and activism. Like at COP, this catchphrase
Nick Mott:from Greta Thunberg caught hold all over the city. But in the
Nick Mott:depths of the conference, these young folks were learning how to
Nick Mott:blah. There were people like Marie-Claire Graf, a
Nick Mott:fast-talking, strategy-minded Swiss woman who'd been working
Nick Mott:with YOUNGO for years, and brought prodigious amounts of
Nick Mott:Swiss chocolate to share with the group.
Nick Mott:Marie-Claire Graf: When you start to understand what's going
Nick Mott:on, and if you actually can make sense of what is going on, and
Nick Mott:you have the different options at the table, and you can figure
Nick Mott:out yourself, okay, why do certain countries do this? It
Nick Mott:it's getting super interesting, and I think it's like in a very
Nick Mott:exciting thriller movie or something like this.
Nick Mott:And Heeta Lakhani, who got passionate about
Nick Mott:environmental issues after seeing trees taken down to make
Nick Mott:way for a bigger highway back in her hometown in India. She said
Nick Mott:this conference is a world of its own, but there's something
Nick Mott:about it that grabbed her.
Heeta Lakhani:It's like an addiction. So even though you
Heeta Lakhani:hate it, you will still be there. It's a love hate
Heeta Lakhani:relationship, where you know that there is a way to wait
Heeta Lakhani:progress, but you also know the flaws, and then you're just
Heeta Lakhani:frustrated with it, but you also like it, and you also want to
Heeta Lakhani:push it. And yeah, and I think I'm one of those people who are
Heeta Lakhani:now addicted. Once you're in it, you're in it for life. I think.
Nick Mott:Youth have actually been trying to find a seat at
Nick Mott:the table at COP since the very beginning of the conferences,
Nick Mott:more than two and a half decades ago. But for years, that
Nick Mott:representation came through a variety of groups working
Nick Mott:individually. In 2011, YOUNGO gained official "constituency"
Nick Mott:status, which means essentially, they serve as an umbrella group
Nick Mott:for all youth organizations and the official youth voice for all
Nick Mott:things UNFCCC. The vast majority of observers hustling through
Nick Mott:the halls are actually broken into nine of these different
Nick Mott:constituencies, each representing the main
Nick Mott:stakeholder groups of the conference. Along with YOUNGO,
Nick Mott:there's BINGO- for business groups, not the game. TUNGO for
Nick Mott:trade unions, not the thing in your mouth. And RINGO, which
Nick Mott:makes me think of the drummer in The Beatles, but is actually a
Nick Mott:bunch of research groups. So for YOUNGO, getting recognized as a
Nick Mott:UN constituency was a big deal. It means the UN considers young
Nick Mott:people as a group that has one of the most important
Nick Mott:perspectives on climate change. If you're just one group
Nick Mott:advocating for a specific cause, it's easy for your voice to get
Nick Mott:lost in the swarm of activity in COP. But YOUNGO, with hundreds
Nick Mott:of members at the conference, can operate like a delegation of
Nick Mott:their own. They can strategize and coordinate, make sure
Nick Mott:members are getting into the right negotiations. They can
Nick Mott:split up to make sure their presence is known just about
Nick Mott:everywhere. The group is pushing for specific agenda items under
Nick Mott:discussion at COP, things like climate financing that's fair to
Nick Mott:developing and vulnerable countries, a transition to clean
Nick Mott:and renewable energy focused on justice that doesn't leave
Nick Mott:behind the most vulnerable. They participated in panels, watched
Nick Mott:negotiations and helped spread the word about the group's
Nick Mott:Global Youth statement, a 70 plus page document outlining
Nick Mott:their policy demands. The statement called for
Nick Mott:prioritizing justice and inclusion of all kinds, and
Nick Mott:perhaps unsurprisingly, focused especially on getting more young
Nick Mott:people involved. But at the same time that they're pushing for
Nick Mott:change in the actual climate talks, they're also teaching the
Nick Mott:next generation of climate leaders and activists. This is
Nick Mott:even in their mission, and part of that training means learning
Nick Mott:the language of the conference, and that takes a while. Heeta
Nick Mott:Lakhani has been learning the process over several years. Her
Nick Mott:first time here was COP22 and she said, even after she'd
Nick Mott:gotten a master's in environmental studies-
Heeta Lakhani:I still had no clue what was happening at a
Heeta Lakhani:COP. I had never studied about what a conference of parties is.
Heeta Lakhani:I'd never studied about what negotiations are, how these
Heeta Lakhani:international policies relate to local actions, vice versa. I
Heeta Lakhani:have a book where I, you know, I used to go back home after the
Heeta Lakhani:COPS and, like, reread the documents again and make my
Heeta Lakhani:notes and try and understand everything that happened over
Heeta Lakhani:the past week or two weeks, because I was just so lost in
Heeta Lakhani:two weeks.
Nick Mott:It's like a journal.
Heeta Lakhani:Yeah. So I really used to, like, you know, write
Heeta Lakhani:down, okay, Paris Agreement: article one, article two, and
Heeta Lakhani:like, make my own summaries of what it was. So, I mean, I
Heeta Lakhani:taught my way through it. I sat through negotiations with, of
Heeta Lakhani:course, friends who sort of guided me through as well part
Heeta Lakhani:of the YOUNGO family. And then the biggest motivation for me to
Heeta Lakhani:keep coming back was, you know, if this was so new to me,
Heeta Lakhani:despite having the privilege to be here so many times, and
Heeta Lakhani:still, you know, having so many gaps in knowledge, so many gaps
Heeta Lakhani:in understanding, I wanted to take this back home.
Nick Mott:YOUNGO itself operates like a mini COP. It's
Nick Mott:volunteer-led, consensus-based, and has a number of working
Nick Mott:groups. At COP, members convened every morning to coordinate and
Nick Mott:plan. Then they split off each person tracking specific issues.
Nick Mott:They jump between their own cramped office, negotiation
Nick Mott:rooms and panels and talks they were involved in. YOUNGO members
Nick Mott:like Heeta helped people newer to the conference get their feet
Nick Mott:under them and navigate all the jargon. Marie-Claire Graff has
Nick Mott:also been to several COPs. She's actually served as negotiator
Nick Mott:for Switzerland while she's focused on the intricacies of
Nick Mott:the negotiations at the conference. She says she also
Nick Mott:leads climate strikes back home.
Nick Mott:Marie-Claire Graf: I think it's good to kind of know both ways,
Nick Mott:and you can also play them like nicely, strategically. I think
Nick Mott:it's good to know how systems work to be able to either change
Nick Mott:them or to come up with something better. Because if you
Nick Mott:don't understand the system, you can just generally blame it, but
Nick Mott:it's hard to come up with a better solution, if you don't
Nick Mott:know one, then very often, actually, the suggested
Nick Mott:solutions are exactly what is already there.
Nick Mott:As I spent time with YOUNGO, what really interested
Nick Mott:me about this group was what the organization suggests about the
Nick Mott:future of COP. The climate crisis is a long term problem.
Nick Mott:Even if we stopped all emissions today, we'd be dealing with the
Nick Mott:effects of the damage that's already been done for decades,
Nick Mott:if not centuries. So just like we need to build new renewable
Nick Mott:energy infrastructure, we need to invest in our human
Nick Mott:infrastructure too. We need people with all kinds of skills,
Nick Mott:disaster managers, green builders and heat pump
Nick Mott:installers and climate negotiators. In the context of
Nick Mott:COP, that means people who understand the ins and outs of
Nick Mott:creating and implementing complex international agreements
Nick Mott:that help keep the hundreds of countries in COP moving the same
Nick Mott:direction. This is part of what YOUNGO was doing. It's a
Nick Mott:training ground.
Nick Mott:Chandelle O'Neil: I didn't really have many expectations.
Nick Mott:It's my first time getting to COP. This is my first time in
Nick Mott:like a UNFCCC space, like my first time trying to be a
Nick Mott:diplomat, basically.
Nick Mott:Chandelle O'Neill is a sustainable energy specialist
Nick Mott:and human rights advocate from Trinidad and Tobago.
Nick Mott:Chandelle O'Neil: It all comes together. It's all part of it.
Nick Mott:Social justice, crime, justice, inclusion, everything. It all
Nick Mott:comes together.
Nick Mott:For Chandelle and a lot of YOUNGO members, this
Nick Mott:experience is all about learning. The conference was
Nick Mott:like a two week crash course in international relations and
Nick Mott:climate policy. Like Chandelle said, they were learning to be a
Nick Mott:diplomat, learning how to speak this abstruse, bureaucratic
Nick Mott:language, how to lobby and advocate in the COP environment,
Nick Mott:despite all its faults. And also learning how to work together,
Nick Mott:to respect one another and to elevate voices that often get
Nick Mott:left out of the discussion.
Nick Mott:Chandelle O'Neil: It's just we have to work within the system
Nick Mott:that was given to us. It might not be the best, it might not be
Nick Mott:the most inclusive, but part of it is us coming into space and
Nick Mott:trying to transform the system, because the system wasn't
Nick Mott:designed for us, it wasn't made for us. So we're trying to build
Nick Mott:something better together.
Nick Mott:Chandelle is part of this training ground, and the
Nick Mott:training ground is partly about bringing in people with all
Nick Mott:kinds of backgrounds from all parts of the world, both the
Nick Mott:global north and the global south. There's a sentiment out
Nick Mott:there that COP is just like Greta Thunberg said, all blah
Nick Mott:blah blah. That nothing really happens here. That these last 25
Nick Mott:plus years have just been politicians going through the
Nick Mott:motions over and over again. And I get that. It's something that
Nick Mott:I felt too going into the conference, and a degree of that
Nick Mott:feeling still hasn't left me months later. But I think that
Nick Mott:feeling of hopelessness might depend on how you frame what
Nick Mott:happens at COP and where change comes from. Is the conference a
Nick Mott:silo? Is it this kind of impenetrable fortress that
Nick Mott:generates our climate goals and action, or do parts of what
Nick Mott:happened here reflect other conversations that are happening
Nick Mott:outside its walls entirely? If it's just a former the silo
Nick Mott:thing, I think we're pretty screwed, but I do see ways in
Nick Mott:which the conference has become more reflective of society
Nick Mott:overall, and YOUNGO was part of that, they gained a seat at the
Nick Mott:table about a decade ago. That ingrained in COP the importance
Nick Mott:of the youth voice on climate change. Other groups, including
Nick Mott:the Indigenous Peoples Organizations, the constituency
Nick Mott:for indigenous groups all over the world, have also gained
Nick Mott:recognition, and I saw actions, events, panels and talks at
Nick Mott:COP26 focusing on other voices that have been left out,
Nick Mott:including perspectives from the global south, and an emphasis on
Nick Mott:women and gender issues. I certainly still have questions,
Nick Mott:and I'm not saying these efforts are perfect, but compared to the
Nick Mott:technical, narrowly science oriented climate conferences of
Nick Mott:two decades ago, this is a radical shift. One morning, I
Nick Mott:saw evidence of that change unfold. I was bleary-eyed,
Nick Mott:looking around for YOUNGO members, and then I saw Heeta
Nick Mott:and Marie-Claire.
Nick Mott:I was coming to find you.
Nick Mott:I followed them through the crowded hallways and just
Nick Mott:outside this big display advertising some companies
Nick Mott:climate initiatives, Heeta and Marie-Claire ran into somebody
Nick Mott:they knew.
Negotiator:Am I not disturbing?
Nick Mott:I didn't catch his name, but what I did find out
Nick Mott:was that he used to be a YOUNGO member, but now he's moved on.
Nick Mott:He's a negotiator.
Negotiator:Thank you, for two years.
Nick Mott:The negotiator told him he was grateful for the time
Nick Mott:he'd spent at YOUNGO and for everything he learned. Now, he
Nick Mott:was applying it. The three of them joked around for a while
Nick Mott:and then parted ways, smiling.
Nick Mott:Marie-Claire Graf: Thank you. Awesome.
Nick Mott:Here was YOUNGO's mission put into practice. A
Nick Mott:member that took what he learned to go on to shape COP from the
Nick Mott:inside. Watching this quick interaction in the hall, I was
Nick Mott:left thinking, we need to get nearly 200 countries to agree
Nick Mott:with each other, to forge a new future for the entire planet. So
Nick Mott:this change I'm seeing in real time here is something. But is
Nick Mott:it enough? Are these things happening at the pace and scale
Nick Mott:we need? Can this result in the actual policies we need to
Nick Mott:reduce emissions and change the trajectory we're on, and what
Nick Mott:are all these YOUNGO members getting trained to do exactly?
Nick Mott:How do you build a global climate agreement. Amy tries to
Nick Mott:figure that out after the break.
Amy Martin:Welcome back, it's Amy again, and now that we've
Amy Martin:got a sense of the space and who the cast of characters is here,
Amy Martin:let's dive into the work itself. What are people trying to do
Amy Martin:here, and how are they doing it? Like Dr. Saleemul Huq said
Amy Martin:earlier, the main focus of this COP is implementing the Paris
Amy Martin:Agreement. Paris laid out the path, Glasgow is about walking
Amy Martin:it, and that involves a bunch of really dry, technical, but super
Amy Martin:important things like clarifying how the system for international
Amy Martin:carbon credits works, and making the process for reporting
Amy Martin:emissions reductions those nationally determined
Amy Martin:contributions more transparent and uniform. And there's also
Amy Martin:old business to tend to here, way back at the 2009 Climate
Amy Martin:Conference in Copenhagen, the world's wealthiest countries
Amy Martin:pledged to pay $100 billion per year to poorer nations to be
Amy Martin:used for climate mitigation and adaptation projects. This was a
Amy Martin:recognition that about 10% of countries had generated 80% of
Amy Martin:carbon emissions, and that less developed countries deserve
Amy Martin:support as they try to deal with a problem they had a very small
Amy Martin:role in creating, but the wealthy countries have never
Amy Martin:made good on the 100 billion pledge. They keep coming up
Amy Martin:billions of dollars short, and that has led to a lot of
Amy Martin:mistrust in the climate negotiations. Here's Saleem
Amy Martin:again.
Amy Martin:Dr. Saleemul Huq: This is a convention to tackle pollution,
Amy Martin:pollution by emissions of greenhouse gasses which come
Amy Martin:from burning fossil fuel and have a very long history. So
Amy Martin:it's a polluter pay principle here, not charity, not rich
Amy Martin:countries, helping poor countries. It's polluters paying
Amy Martin:the victims of their pollution. That's what we're demanding
Amy Martin:here. That's what the money is for. That's what they promise to
Amy Martin:give, and they're refusing to give.
Amy Martin:So there's a bunch of thorny stuff that needs to
Amy Martin:get hashed out at this COP. Paris agreement implementation,
Amy Martin:climate finance and, of course, mitigation, lowering emissions,
Amy Martin:decarbonizing economies, with the goal of limiting heating to
Amy Martin:no more than 1.5 degrees over pre industrial levels. And all
Amy Martin:of it needs to happen at once.
Erika Janik:This is very overwhelming, but also very
Erika Janik:cool. I love hearing all these different languages. But, yeah,
Erika Janik:it's a lot. It's a lot, a lot, a lot. It's hard to even know what
Erika Janik:is going on.
Amy Martin:That's my colleague, Erika Janik again. I found her
Amy Martin:in the pavilion area on day two wandering around looking
Amy Martin:slightly dazed, and I felt the same way. I mean, the first
Amy Martin:phase of any conference includes some confusion as you try to get
Amy Martin:oriented. But I've never experienced anything like the
Amy Martin:confusion of a UN climate conference. I had done months of
Amy Martin:research before we went. I interviewed multiple insiders,
Amy Martin:read countless news stories, watched footage from previous
Amy Martin:conferences, and studied academic articles which
Amy Martin:described and analyzed the process. So I thought I was
Amy Martin:pretty well prepared to hit the ground running, but I wasn't
Amy Martin:prepared for this.
Amy Martin:Informal consultation on guidance to the GCF in
Amy Martin:parentheses- COP8c, CMA8b and g,e,f, COP8d, CMA8c.
Amy Martin:I'm standing in front of a big blue screen listing all of the
Amy Martin:meetings happening that day, including time and location.
Amy Martin:Screens like this were scattered all throughout the conference
Amy Martin:area, ostensibly to help keep everyone informed. But when you
Amy Martin:actually stop to read the text scrolling by, this is what you
Amy Martin:found.
Amy Martin:Contact group on CMP7a report of the AFB. Contact group on CMA8d,
Amy Martin:matters related to the AF. Joint COP/CMA, informal consultations.
Amy Martin:I mean, give me a break.
Amy Martin:I had come here to watch the world worked together to build a
Amy Martin:climate agreement, to try to solve climate change. But where
Amy Martin:was that happening exactly? I needed help, and I found it in
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas.
Amy Martin:How many COPs have you been to now?
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: This is my fourth one. So not that many,
Amy Martin:but still not a newbie. My first one was Paris, oh yeah, and I
Amy Martin:was completely lost then.
Amy Martin:Adelle is a Senior Fellow at the Climate Change
Amy Martin:Research Center at the University of the Bahamas. She
Amy Martin:also works with a global think tank called Climate Analytics.
Amy Martin:She's a geographer, and she's served as a lead author on
Amy Martin:multiple UN scientific reports. When I found Adelle in the very
Amy Martin:crowded lunch line, she immediately gave me this
Amy Martin:important tip.
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: The sausage roll is terrible. Vegetarian
Amy Martin:sausage roll.
Amy Martin:Like Saleem, Adelle was in our first episode this
Amy Martin:season, and she'd also agreed to let me look over her shoulder
Amy Martin:here, as an advisor to the negotiations for the small
Amy Martin:island developing states or SIDS. But before we can talk
Amy Martin:about the details of what she hopes could be achieved at this
Amy Martin:conference, I need to ask some much more basic questions.
Amy Martin:How does this work? Because, I mean, it's not just a conference
Amy Martin:where we're supposed to come together and exchange ideas.
Amy Martin:We're supposed to actually like accomplish something. And
Amy Martin:practical, and is that primarily happening in the negotiations?
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: It's happening outside of the
Amy Martin:negotiations.
Amy Martin:I'd spoken with Adelle a few times on Zoom
Amy Martin:leading up to the conference, and I learned that she has this
Amy Martin:great half smile that she gives when I ask her a question that
Amy Martin:has a big, complicated answer that's going to take a lot of
Amy Martin:explanation. It's a smile that says, Do you really want to know
Amy Martin:that's the smile she's giving me right now. And I do.
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: In the negotiation room, there is
Amy Martin:agreement on something that's been agreed already. They're
Amy Martin:just announcing it in there. So that's happened already in
Amy Martin:bilaterals or the informal, informals, as we call them.
Amy Martin:Informal informals?
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: Yeah, it's insane.
Erika Janik:What is the, what is the informal informal
Erika Janik:compared to just an informal?
Erika Janik:Dr. Adelle Thomas: An informal is in one of the meeting rooms.
Erika Janik:Everyone is is invited. An informal informal will be maybe
Erika Janik:just ones that are not agreeing may come together and try and
Erika Janik:work on a particular issue, and then just a bilateral or a
Erika Janik:huddle is even less formal, so it's nebulous, right? It's not
Erika Janik:like you can watch it being made.
Amy Martin:Adelle and I get our food and get settled on the
Amy Martin:floor to eat because there aren't enough seats available.
Amy Martin:And she starts to walk me through the process.
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: Yep, so on the opening day, which is on
Amy Martin:Sunday, we agreed on the agenda.
Amy Martin:The agenda is the holy grail. Here, it's the list
Amy Martin:of things that are going to be included in the conversation of
Amy Martin:this COP. As with the meetings, the language of the agenda is
Amy Martin:extremely bureaucratic. For example, here's item number 15,
Amy Martin:second review of the adequacy of Article four, paragraph two, A
Amy Martin:through B of the convention. The approved agenda for COP26 is two
Amy Martin:pages long with 19 line items, and Adele says it's pretty much
Amy Martin:impossible to track them all.
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: There's lots going on, which is why the
Amy Martin:negotiation times, I think, are from 10am until 7pm and then
Amy Martin:outside of those meetings, are the other meetings that I talked
Amy Martin:Adelle says the best thing to do is to find one or
Amy Martin:about.
Amy Martin:two agenda items to follow. Her primary focus is item number
Amy Martin:seven, which reads "Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss
Amy Martin:and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts." For our
Amy Martin:purposes, you can ignore everything but three key words
Amy Martin:in the middle there: loss and damage. These are climate change
Amy Martin:impacts that are irreversible, damage that can't be undone.
Amy Martin:Like if one of the islands that's part of your country
Amy Martin:becomes permanently uninhabitable. We're going to be
Amy Martin:talking more about loss and damage in our next episode, but
Amy Martin:as we try to just learn the mechanics here, the key thing to
Amy Martin:know is that small island developing states and many other
Amy Martin:countries want the rich countries to recognize loss and
Amy Martin:damage and pay for it, and the rich countries mostly don't want
Amy Martin:to.
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: So for loss and damage, which is what I'm
Amy Martin:following, we have three official negotiating sessions.
Amy Martin:We had one on Monday, we had one yesterday, and we have one on
Amy Martin:Thursday, and we have to come to some type of agreement by
Amy Martin:Friday. So those three meetings are the official informal
Amy Martin:meetings, but most of the negotiation takes place outside
Amy Martin:of that.
Amy Martin:This is where those informal informals and
Amy Martin:bilaterals and huddles that Adelle mentioned come in.
Amy Martin:Conversations and debates happening in nooks and crannies
Amy Martin:throughout the conference area, all aimed at moving the ball
Amy Martin:forward, line by line, word by word. And what makes it really
Amy Martin:complicated is that there are many issues being negotiated at
Amy Martin:the same time, and they're often interrelated. I asked Adelle how
Amy Martin:the different negotiators from a particular country or group of
Amy Martin:countries keep each other up to date on their progress.
Amy Martin:Do they just rush in with like, I came from an informal informal
Amy Martin:with breaking news or what?
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: So there's a lot of coordination that needs
Amy Martin:to go on between the different agenda items. So for instance,
Amy Martin:what we're looking at in loss and damage is affected by what's
Amy Martin:going on in finance, and both of those are happening at the same
Amy Martin:time, and so you have to have communication between your
Amy Martin:negotiators to make sure that you're staying on the same page.
Amy Martin:There's a lot of WhatsApp, which has been a savior, but, so you
Amy Martin:point to some of the challenges. So for small delegations, it's
Amy Martin:hard to be caught up on everything that's happening
Amy Martin:everywhere. Whereas people countries with big delegations,
Amy Martin:you know, they have tons of people, and they can have people
Amy Martin:even specifically dedicated to making sure that there's
Amy Martin:communication and seeing how the different pieces fit together.
Amy Martin:So if you're from a smaller country, maybe you have
Amy Martin:what like three to five people? So and like, they might all be
Amy Martin:in actual negotiations, and then there's nobody out working the
Amy Martin:side channels or the back doors as much.
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: Correct. Or there may be following different
Amy Martin:things and not being able to put the pieces together in real
Amy Martin:time. And, you know, like having to at the end of the day we
Amy Martin:reassess, which may be too late.
Amy Martin:Just to give you a range of the delegation sizes,
Amy Martin:Brazil had the largest group at this COP with 479 delegates. The
Amy Martin:United States had 165, South Sudan had 34, and the Bahamas
Amy Martin:had 14. To amplify their voices and boost their chances of
Amy Martin:having some influence at the COP talks, a lot of the smaller or
Amy Martin:less wealthy countries have formed blocks that negotiate
Amy Martin:together. There's the alliance of small island developing
Amy Martin:states or AOSIS. There's the LDC group, the 46 nations defined by
Amy Martin:the UN as least developed countries. But the rich and
Amy Martin:powerful nations have formed blocks too. The United States,
Amy Martin:Canada, Japan and some other big emitters are part of something
Amy Martin:called the Umbrella Group. And Brazil, South Africa, China and
Amy Martin:India have banded together as the Basic Group. So there are
Amy Martin:elements of the process here that are reminiscent of what
Amy Martin:happens in congresses and parliaments all over the world.
Amy Martin:People form coalitions and map out strategies for trying to
Amy Martin:advance their agendas. And at the center of it all is a piece
Amy Martin:of paper, or many pieces of paper, really, this document
Amy Martin:that we call a climate agreement. All throughout the
Amy Martin:conference, draft text is getting passed around behind the
Amy Martin:scenes as the various coalitions try to unify their messages.
Amy Martin:Every single word of this text ultimately gets scrutinized and
Amy Martin:haggled over. It's a little bit like how legislation gets
Amy Martin:written in a democracy. But in this case, people aren't just
Amy Martin:collaborating and arguing with members of their own congress or
Amy Martin:parliament. Climate agreements involve thousands of people from
Amy Martin:every country on the globe, and when you really think about
Amy Martin:that, what they're trying to pull off here, it's pretty
Amy Martin:stunning. These delegates are trying to write a document that
Amy Martin:meets the approval of representatives from all of the
Amy Martin:planet's human societies. I can't decide if that's an
Amy Martin:inspiring testament to our species' ability to cooperate
Amy Martin:and exercise in human hubris and folly, or just the hardest group
Amy Martin:writing assignment ever given. Maybe it's all of the above.
Amy Martin:Pulling back out to the 30,000 foot level, just in terms of
Amy Martin:process, it's hard to understand how a bunch of people in this
Amy Martin:room are doing something that actually ends up leading to
Amy Martin:progress. Have you had negotiations that you've
Amy Martin:observed or been part of where you're like, we actually
Amy Martin:accomplished something here. Something was moved forward,
Amy Martin:even if it was a small thing.
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: So it's a very long process, and it seems
Amy Martin:like you're just spinning your wheels, but eventually something
Amy Martin:comes out of it. Now, whether it's worth all of that effort,
Amy Martin:right? Do we need to go through all of this long thing to get to
Amy Martin:that point. I don't agree with that, the long process, but I
Amy Martin:have seen that, you know, some things still make a difference.
Amy Martin:Yeah, I'm looking for analogies for what this is,
Amy Martin:and what you were just saying almost made me think of like an
Amy Martin:anthill. It's sort of impenetrable from the outside,
Amy Martin:but there's all this, like, busy activity and that anthill can
Amy Martin:get really big, like they are doing something, is that, am I
Amy Martin:on the right track at all?
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: Yeah, I think that's a good way of looking at
Amy Martin:it, and just even thinking of us as ants, which is what I feel
Amy Martin:like in this conflict. We're all running around trying to figure
Amy Martin:out where we can be helpful, what we can do, but at the end
Amy Martin:of the day, we are contributing to something that's bigger than
Amy Martin:each of our individual inputs. So I think that's a helpful
Amy Martin:I said a minute ago that there are parts of this
Amy Martin:framing.
Amy Martin:process that are kind of like crafting legislation, but there
Amy Martin:are significant differences too. To start with, the United
Amy Martin:Nations is not a government. It's a voluntary organization.
Amy Martin:It can't make laws like countries can. Even the crown
Amy Martin:jewel of the COP process, the Paris Agreement, is a blend of
Amy Martin:legally binding and non binding rules, and not all signatories
Amy Martin:agree on whether or not it's an international treaty or
Amy Martin:something else. The question of how enforceable these climate
Amy Martin:agreements are and should be is a matter of intense debate.
Amy Martin:That's just another issue that has to be worked out here.
Amy Martin:Another big difference between the COP process and how
Amy Martin:legislative bodies work is that there is no voting here. COP is
Amy Martin:consensus based, which means everyone has to agree in order
Amy Martin:for something to move forward. So it's not like an agenda item
Amy Martin:can be approved if 60% or even 99% of the countries agree to
Amy Martin:it. If one party objects, then the negotiations stall. And that
Amy Martin:happens all the time. That's a big reason why progress at these
Amy Martin:talks has been so slow. It's an incredibly frustrating thing to
Amy Martin:watch one country ruin it for everybody else, but especially
Amy Martin:so for people like Adelle and Saleem, who are inside this
Amy Martin:system trying to make it go faster. I spoke with Adelle a
Amy Martin:few times before COP26 and in our last conversation a few
Amy Martin:months before the conference, she was pretty down.
Amy Martin:I guess when you're an ant, it can also feel kind of
Amy Martin:demoralizing, because, you know you're tiny. I mean, how is your
Amy Martin:ant self? Right now?
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: My ant self is... I'm feeling okay. I know
Amy Martin:the last time we spoke, I was feeling sad and, you know, as if
Amy Martin:there wasn't much hope. But I mean, it's cyclical, so
Amy Martin:sometimes it can be overwhelming. Other times you
Amy Martin:can feel like okay, even though the role that I play may be
Amy Martin:small in the grand scheme of things, it's important, and it's
Amy Martin:helping towards this overall goal of where we want to get to.
Amy Martin:So at this point in time, I'm feeling a bit more hopeful.
Amy Martin:What do you think is the most we could hope to get
Amy Martin:out of this?
Amy Martin:Dr. Adelle Thomas: The most I think that we can get out of
Amy Martin:this, I'm going to be optimistic. I think that we will
Amy Martin:have a pathway forward for getting the 100 billion per year
Amy Martin:in finance before 2023, which is what they're currently
Amy Martin:projecting. I'm going to hope that we get recognition and a
Amy Martin:commitment for new and additional finance for loss and
Amy Martin:damage, and I'm going to hope that we get a commitment on the
Amy Martin:mitigation side to keep temperatures to 1.5 through
Amy Martin:countries coming back with better national plans,
Amy Martin:nationally determined contributions on meeting 1.5 so
Amy Martin:I hope that this COP will keep 1.5 alive, finance, and loss and
Amy Martin:damage.
Amy Martin:We'll be checking back in with Adelle in our next
Amy Martin:episode to see if her hopes are realized.
Amy Martin:So at this point, I imagine some of you listening might be having
Amy Martin:a thought that I had, and probably everybody has, as they
Amy Martin:learn about how the UN climate talks work. We have to get rid
Amy Martin:of this consensus model. It's too slow and cumbersome. The
Amy Martin:very best it can do is deliver incremental change, and that's a
Amy Martin:huge mismatch with what the climate crisis demands, which is
Amy Martin:quick, nimble, strategic responses. But then, if you take
Amy Martin:the thought of abandoning the consensus model one step
Amy Martin:further, you have to answer, what are we going to replace it
Amy Martin:with? And that opens a huge can of worms. Are we going to make
Amy Martin:the UNFCCC more like a legislative body with elected
Amy Martin:representatives and bills that get voted up or down? How would
Amy Martin:that work? What powers should this climate congress have, and
Amy Martin:what are the checks and balances on those powers? Tabling the
Amy Martin:question of whether or not this is even a good idea, and the
Amy Martin:fact that most, if not all, countries would be opposed to
Amy Martin:it, just figuring something like this out would also take decades
Amy Martin:of global meetings. There are other ways to make climate
Amy Martin:action happen, of course. Individual nations and groups of
Amy Martin:like minded countries can and do push forward on their own, and
Amy Martin:companies like the ones we profiled in our last episode can
Amy Martin:decide to lead instead of resisting the changes we need.
Amy Martin:But alongside all of these efforts, we still need the
Amy Martin:global architecture that's emerging through this UN
Amy Martin:process. We need coordinated planetary action, because
Amy Martin:Earth's atmosphere is the ultimate global commons. It
Amy Martin:can't be chopped up into mine and yours. It's one contiguous,
Amy Martin:amorphous, crucial thing. So although the UN climate talks
Amy Martin:are full of flaws, this is the process we have, and we don't
Amy Martin:have time to create another one.
Alok Sharma:We know that the window to keep 1.5 degrees
Alok Sharma:within reach is closing.
Amy Martin:This is Alok Sharma, president of COP26 speaking on
Amy Martin:the opening day of the conference. He's looking out at
Amy Martin:a room full of faces, people who've traveled to Glasgow from
Amy Martin:all around the world, and many of them have devoted their lives
Amy Martin:to trying to make this process work and make it better.
Alok Sharma:Friends, in each of our countries, we are seeing the
Alok Sharma:devastating impact of a changing climate, and we can only address
Alok Sharma:that together through this international system. The
Alok Sharma:rapidly changing climate is sounding an alarm to the world
Alok Sharma:to step up on adaptation, to address loss and damage and to
Alok Sharma:act now to keep 1.5 alive. I believe that this international
Alok Sharma:system can deliver. It must deliver. I believe that we can
Alok Sharma:resolve the outstanding issues. We can move the negotiations
Alok Sharma:forward, and we can launch a decade of ever increasing
Alok Sharma:ambition and action, and that work, my friends, starts today.
Alok Sharma:And we will succeed or fail as one.
Amy Martin:In many ways, the UN climate talks are an audaciously
Amy Martin:optimistic endeavor. We're trying to do something
Amy Martin:remarkable, work together as a species at a scale we've never
Amy Martin:done before. That's what the climate crisis requires of us, a
Amy Martin:new level of species-wide thinking, planning and action.
Amy Martin:The question is, can we do it? We're going to continue our
Amy Martin:coverage of COP26 in our next episode. Stay tuned.
Emily Moore:I'm Emily from Boulder, Colorado. Reporting for
Emily Moore:this season of Threshold was funded by the Park Foundation,
Emily Moore:the High Stakes Foundation, the Pleiades foundation, NewsMatch,
Emily Moore:the Llewellyn foundation and listeners. This work depends on
Emily Moore:people who believe in it and choose to support it. People
Emily Moore:like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org.
Amy Martin:This episode of Threshold was produced and
Amy Martin:reported by Nick Mott and me, Amy Martin, with help from Erika
Amy Martin:Janik and Sam Moore. The music is by Todd Sickafoose. The rest
Amy Martin:of the Threshold team is Caysi Simpson, Deneen Weiske, Eva
Amy Martin:Kalea and Shola Lawal. Our intern is Emery Veilleux. Thanks
Amy Martin:to Sally Deng, Maggy Contreras, Hana Carey, Dan Carreno, Luca
Amy Martin:Borghese, Julia Berry, Kara Cromwell, Katie deFusco,
Amy Martin:Caroline Kurtz and Gabby Piamonte. Special thanks to Eva
Amy Martin:Knekta, Vivian Kalea, Emily Moore, Christopher Preston,
Amy Martin:Leslie Scott, Katy Scott, Joseph Harvey and Abe.
