COP26 - A year late

A view from the Frankfort Airport - it is not raining!

Good morning and Greetings from the Frankfurt, Germany airport. I have a layover on my way to Glasgow and COP26 and am a bit groggy from too little sleep on an overnight flight from Newark, NJ. 

COP26 refers to the 26th Conference of the Parties (signatories) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Convention (UNFCCC). With the pandemic, it has been much more of an ordeal to prepare than usual and with many heads of state attending, including President Biden, security will be extraordinarily tight. But let's hope that these leaders will make significant progress towards addressing reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation and resilience to a changing world, and climate finance to help developing nations advance in a low carbon future.

The Moravian University (formerly College) delegation will not have any students attending in person this year, due to the State Department risk level for the UK and an institutional decision not to let them travel to Scotland. Dr. Hilde Binford and I will do our best to share what we are hearing and learning “on the ground”.  Two current students, Sam Does (Senior Environmental Science major) and Keegan Schealer (Senior Environmental Economics and Policy major), will join in virtually as delegates. Keegan will also be presenting as part of our NSF-funded Youth Environmental Alliance in Higher Education (YEAH) initiative.

Four Moravian alums (that we know of) will also be attending either in person or virtually: Sarabeth Brockley ('10, Environmental Science) Chelsea Hill ('21, Environmental Science) Melissa Morales ('21, Environmental Science) René Wiesner Brown, PhD ('94 Biology/Natural Resource Management).

Besides representing Moravian and YEAH, I will also be representing the Research and Independent NGOs (RINGOs) as a steering committee member for this official constituency group of the UNFCCC and the Global Council for Science and the Environment.

To get a sense of what is happening each day at the COP, you can check the Overview Schedule, the Daily Programme, News, and the Side Events schedule (which begin on Wednesday). Monday and Tuesday will be devoted to the World Leaders Summit where heads of state will give their statements laying out the framework for any country's delegation during the negotiations. These are always fascinating to listen to. Due to security and space constrictions, it may be difficult to get into the venue to watch this in person, but I am hoping this will be live-streamed. Since President Biden is attending, I am sure that he will speak. In Paris (2015), I was fortunate to be in the room to hear Obama, Putin, Merkel, and several other heads of state ("The room where it happens" is going through my head, if you know this reference from the Broadway show Hamilton).

In a newsletter that registered COP delegates received on October 30th , there was a glimpse at the PR themes that will be used throughout the next two weeks including "TogetherForOurPlanet" and "Shepherd-in-Chief" for the COP26 President Designate (chosen by the host country). You can learn a bit about the COP26 President, Alok Sharma here; note the type of roles he has played in the government and consider how that might influence his perspectives.

In the past week or two leading up to COP26, there was a significant amount of coverage about this event in the U.S. media...more so than usual. NPR had many stories (like this one from last week) and this appeared in the New York Times today. We hope you pay attention to how the event is covered on national and local news over the next two weeks.

End of week 2 reflections

As I sit in the Madrid airport, I reflect over the last two weeks and wonder if anything productive will come out of COP25. The negotiations continue for at least today, but I must get back home.

 
Some countries still think that we have plenty of time to figure things out (or to continue to ignore the climate change issue), despite the "time is running out" theme that was evident in the interventions of political leaders from cities to the head of the U.N., business leaders, youth, environmental organizations, and even scientists who are typically not prone to cries of urgency. The Emissions Gap report released in November provided a bleak picture of the state of greenhouse gas emissions especially when considered in context of the warnings provided in the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 °C warming (above pre-industrial levels).

One of the strongest voices at COP25 and Time Magazine Person of the Year

If the draft text of the working groups is maintained by the Parties, there will be recognition, for the first time, of the critical importance of the oceans as an integral part of the Earth's climate system for both mitigation and adaptation. Despite alarming reports from the World Health Organization (see also the 2018 report) and the Lancet (a leading, well respected medical journal) that describe the negative health impacts of climate change and from air pollution released during the burning of fossil fuels, human health continues to be notably absent from any COP text except for vague references to human safety.

There do appear to be some advances in working out details for financing mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund, but little agreement has been reached on regulation of carbon markets.

The Paris Agreement developed in 2015 was for climate action post 2020. There was supposed to be additional work on pre-2020 action, but given that 2020 is less a month away, that article is essentially obsolete.

There was much discussion this week over the effectiveness of the UN process given that it was established in 1992 and there have been 25 annual conference of the parties, but little progress in solving climate change. I heard sharp criticism about the process from both former Secretary of State, John Kerry, and Jonathan Pershing, the former Special Envoy for Climate Change from the State Department and chief negotiator for the U.S. delegation. But while both argued that the real action is going to come at the local and regional (sub-national levels) and from the private sector, they also felt that it is important to keep countries talking as a reminder of the serious nature of this global issue.

Johnathan Pershing on the right

John Kerry

The Research and Independent NGOs, one of nine officially recognized constituencies of observer groups within the UNFCCC, has the opportunity to draft statements (interventions) for key plenary sessions throughout the COP. Because this group doesn’t advocate for any special position other than having evidence-based policy making, our statements are typically subdued or even bland. For whenever the COP closing plenary is, here is the statement that I drafted for this year:

The RINGOs would like to start by expressing appreciation for the Chilean COP Presidency’s recognition of the importance of “putting science at the center of COP25”, as the Minister noted on December 5th. We also applaud the first-ever virtual meeting of country science ministers held on Dec 4th in conjunction with the COP. 

A vast amount of relevant research data has been collected over the past several decades. Through 25 years of COPs, plentiful technical solutions for mitigation and adaptation as well as finance and market mechanisms have been developed, linking research with innovation at private and public levels. As has been said by many at COP25, it is now time to put research and the agreements into ACTION. 

RINGOs welcome the outcomes of COP25, but we urge all of us to continue to play a role in operationalizing and implementing the details of the Paris Agreement back home. Amid all of the technical discussions, the political processes, and acronyms, we must not forget to humanize climate change, and to help people better understand the implications of climate change for their own well-being as well as for the world around them. Through capacity building, we must give people the tools and empowerment to address climate change in their communities. We must push together so that no actor rests for a moment. 

The research community stands ready to serve as knowledge brokers to explain the regional relevance of the scientific evidence and COP decisions in our home communities and countries. We are also prepared to help the transformation of knowledge into day-to-day practice. The RINGOs encourage the private and public sectors to engage in climate action and move to a more circular economy, both in their work and in their local communities. We call for all stakeholders to become involved in promoting and applying science-based climate solutions. 

In conclusion, the RINGOs would like to express our sincere and deepest gratitude to the Governments and people of Chile and Spain for pulling together COP25 in such a short time. This was a good example of how the global north and south can come together and accomplish a great task - a metaphor for what we all now need to do to advance the provisions of the Paris Agreement and COP25.

Just a typical day at the COP

COP meetings can be overwhelming, even for those of us who have been coming for many years. There are many negotiating tracks that one can follow, a lot of jargon, and way too many acronyms. And just when you begin to learn the proverbial ropes, a new agreement or workstream comes along with another set of vocabularies to learn!

There are daily constituency meetings; my mornings typically start with the Research and Independent NGOs meeting since I serve on the RINGOs steering committee. It is a chance for participants to review what is going on in the various tracks that they are following; a "Cliffs Notes" version of what is progressing (or not). This is helpful for those who cannot be everywhere at once or who aren't inclined to sit through too many lengthy negotiations sessions that often move at a snail’s pace. At the end of these meetings, it is often a good time to check in with students from Moravian’s delegation. Today, the researchers from the U.S. – many of them representing the next generation of scientists and lawyers who will work in the environmental field – gathered to discuss an upcoming meeting with the U.S. delegation (i.e. from the State Department of the only country that is now publicly pulling away from the Paris Agreement). Oh, what an interesting conversation that will be!

Three women in STEM and from the Rocky Mountain Science and Sustainability Network

For those of us who are not policy wonks, there is much more than negotiations to follow. The side-events are a lot like going to a professional conference with panels and presentations on a wide range of topics. For instance, today happens to be “Business and Industry Day” at COP23. Yesterday was “Young and Future Generations Day.” Since we will be discussing corporate responses to climate change in our course soon, I ventured into a session entitled Transforming the Industry: The Case for Transparency and Ambition in Markets and NDCs. (See what I mean about jargon and acronyms?) The session was billed as a time to  

"Discuss the chances and challenges energy intensive industry is facing on the way to GHG-neutrality; Identify how the framework and instruments of the Paris Agreement can support industry on its way to become GHG-neutral by 2050; showcasing (inter)national initiatives that contribute thereto."

I listened to information about carbon pricing, the company Bosch’s story (or propaganda, depending on your perspective), the ability to purchase certificates (carbon offsets), and ways to become more energy efficiency. Yawn. The business world, like many scientists, needs to learn to be a bit less dull.

A typical session audience

Next, I was going to go to a session titled Hacking climate change: The digital future of climate leadership, innovation and impact sponsored by Microsoft and interestingly the South Pole Group! The room was standing room only, so I moved to another session entitled Achieving Socially and Ecologically Beneficial Renewable Energy Systems through Community Engagement in part because one of the sponsors was the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (Planet Pledge initiative). The content is worthy of a separate blog post, but in short, the session was about how the demand for rare metals to support renewable energy technology and the computerized energy efficiency systems is creating new ecological destruction and having negative social consequences for many in the developing world (think conflict minerals). The problem of climate change is complex, but so are potential solutions.

Besides the negotiations and side events, many countries have pavilions where they offer their own programming along with some cultural flare, and there are countless exhibitions from NGOs, universities, think tanks, and other organizations. Having come to these events for many years, I enjoy wandering around reconnecting with interesting friends from around the world, including people I met at the community-based adaptation conference in Uganda last summer from Bangladesh and Zanzibar, representatives from Mediators Beyond Borders International, faculty from other campuses, etc. I had two back-to-back conversations with people who had been in Svalbard this past summer! It is, ironically, a network of friends with a high carbon footprint from travel. Tonight, I will have dinner with a French glaciologist who studies in Scotland and does research in polar regions. And that is a typical day at a COP meeting: exhausting, but never dull.

Some scenes from around the COP:

 

Yes, those are lights made from hollowed out fish!

The last 4 images are from the Fiji Pavilion - the official host of COP23 even if we are in Bonn