COP 26, Glasgow, October 31-November 14, 2021
Outcomes, analysis and recommendations
(appendix to vision document Council of Churches in the Netherlands: ‘Towards a sustainable future’ – own translation)
Key outcomes COP 26
Glasgow saw broad agreement to strive for a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius warming. In Paris there was still talk of 2 degrees. However, according to the IPCC the disasters and the costs of climate change will already be too great at 2 degrees of warming.
The current NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions – the climate plans that countries submit to the UN) are far from sufficient to achieve 1.5 degrees. Calculations by specialized NGOs show that they are closer to 2.4 degrees. That is why it was agreed in Glasgow that the countries must submit better plans next year in order to keep 1.5 degrees in sight. Countries are increasingly joining the ‘Race to Zero’: climate neutrality in 2050. However, there is no clear definition of this yet.
The Rulebook for the Paris Climate Agreement was finalised in Glasgow, so that the agreement can now be implemented. Tricky subjects: the ‘carrying along’ of old emission rights and the ‘offsetting’ of emissions through, for example, afforestation. Compromises were made at the last minute.
Cooperation between the US and China: an important bright spot and example: cooperation in the field of climate change is more important than political differences.
Fossil fuels were mentioned for the first time(!) in the final text of a COP. Subsidies for fossil fuels must be phased out, starting in rich countires; the same goes for the extraction and use of brown coal and coal; various agreements have been made for oil and gas. A group of countries, which the Netherlands joined after pressure from the House of Representatives, is stopping financing overseas projects. However, domestic projects can continue in industrialised countries, based on CO2 capture and storage or reuse (Carbon Capture and Storage/Utilisation). CCSU (or CCUS) is a technology under development (including at Shell) and currently provides for the reuse of only approximately 5% of the CO2 released during production. This technology is still very expensive.
For storage, empty gas fields under the North Sea are being considered.
For both coal and oil and gas, alliances of countries have been set up to get rid of these fossil fuels: Powering Past Coal and Beyond Oil and Gas. Various countries, including Germany, have their own timeline (Germany will stop using coal by 2038 at the latest; the new government coalition wants to try to stop earlier).
Methane: A large coalition of countries, including the Netherlands, wants to have reduced methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 and is released during the extraction of fossil fuels and in livestock farming, among other things. However, the gas remains in the atmosphere for a shorter period than CO2: decades versus thousands of years.
Deforestation: A large coalition of countries, including the Netherlands, has pledged to stop deforestation by 2030 and to reverse it by planting more trees. Forests store CO2, provided they are healthy (the health of forests is under pressure worldwide due to climate change).
Climate finance: A thorny subject was and is the pledge in 2009 by industrialized countries to make 100 billion USD available annually to developing countries from 2020, via the Green Climate Fund. That money must be used for mitigation (reducing emissions) and adaptation (adapting to climate change). That amount has not been achieved. It was agreed to up the efforts to raise that amount a.s.a.p., retroactively to 2020.
Loss & Damage: The thorny subject of Loss & Damage has been discussed more broadly than in previous COPs, but is still not part of the actual negotiations. The rich countries are blocking this because they fear liability. Instead, an insurance consortium has been set up. It has been agreed to put Loss & Damage more prominently on the agenda of COP 27, under strong pressure from developing countries.
Adaptation: Adaptation to climate change is becoming an increasingly important topic. The Netherlands has an important role: the office of the Global Center on Adaptation is located in Rotterdam. It is expected that Adaptation will be central during COP 27 in Egypt (November 2022).
Background, analysis and recommendations
The UN Secretary-General and the UNFCCC Secretariat have been working very hard for years to get countries to increase their ambition. They have also ensured more input at COPs by non-governmental organizations of women, youth, indigenous people, NGOs, religions, trade unions, and the business community. Opening COPs to the business community not only results in a lot of ‘green’ presence, but also a strong lobby from the nuclear energy and fossil fuel industries. In Glasgow, there were around 500 ‘fossil’ lobbyists, more than the largest official country delegation. This was strongly protested, but countries are free to include anyone in their delegation. The US, Canada, Australia and OPEC countries in particular had brought these lobbyists.
Even though the UNFCCC offers civil society groups as much space as possible during the COPs, the UN system does not provide for their official input (except for a few very short statemtents in plenary). In fact, many people feel that their governments are negotiating ‘over their heads’, without their consent or input. Formally, the latter is not true in democracies: governments are elected by the population here. But there seems to be a growing breach of trust between ‘the people’ and ‘the government’, also in the Netherlands.
The biggest problem in the negotiations is that country delegations do not let general interest prevail, but their (supposed) self-interest. As long as countries do not realise that the general interest is also their own interest, negotiations will continue to be extremely difficult. The biggest stumbling block in this is the position of developing countries. By failing to fulfil the promise to make 100 billion USD available annually, the trust between the poor(er) and rich countries has been damaged even further than it already was. This was stated in no uncertain terms several times in Glasgow. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the rich countries fulfil their promises and accept that the poor countries are also entitled to compensation for damage already suffered (Loss & Damage).
The current situation of many poor countries is bleak: many have high debts (IMF, World Bank, bilateral); COVID-19 costs have been added to this, plus already existing and expected climate-related costs. Many poor countries will not be able to get out of the negative spiral, as some striking examples in Glasgow showed. There is a lobby for debt relief that the World Council of Churches supports. The Dutch CoC could join this lobby.
As the COVID 19 pandemic has shown, rich countries are (still) not or not sufficiently willing to share technology and money when it comes to vaccines and medicines (patents, recipes) and face masks. This means that it will take a long time before the pandemic is somewhat under control: after all, just like climate change, it does not respect borders. This ‘self-interest first’ must be broken, because here too: general interest encompasses self-interest.
In summary:
As with COVID-19, it also applies to climate change that rich countries have to help poor countries by a) cancelling debts, b) sharing technology by reorganising property rights so that poor countries can also switch to sustainable energy, -mobility and -production, c) making much more money available for mitigation and adaptation processes in these countries, to be carried out by local companies (and not, as is the case now, by their own companies), and d) fairly compensating Loss & Damage as a result of climate change. Because climate change, as is well known, is caused by industrialised countries, while poor countries suffer the most from it. It is not without reason that religious communities and organizations worldwide constantly point out this injustice, characterise climate change primarily as a moral crisis, and call for climate justice.
As a rich country, the Netherlands should take this situation seriously and accept its moral responsibility. But that is a big deal, certainly in addition to the national climate agenda. How could better and more just climate policy be financed?
1. Make the polluter pay, by reorganizing taxes and subsidies. Subsidies to fossil fuels alone currently amount to USD 11 million per minute worldwide, or USD 5.9 trillion per year (in 2020, IMF calculations).
2. Tax the wealthy more. There are many (international) calls and initiatives that lead the way.
3. Release money from sectors in society where a lot of (hidden) money is currently being spent. For example, very expensive weapons systems and exotic technology.
[This also includes the UFO phenomenon. The existence of UFOs has been officially recognized for several years now, including by the Pentagon; Harvard University has set up a research group. Exotic technology apparently exists on Earth, whether it has been developed by humans or by others. To my knowledge, the Vatican has been briefed about this, the WCC has not (I asked). This technology could be of great importance for tackling the climate crisis and should therefore be released. The same goes for the associated billions that disappear annually into uncontrollable projects (in 2020, it is estimated that more than a trillion USD went to black projects in the US alone).]
In short, it comes down to the fact that humanity will have to learn to live and work together on our one and only planet, whereby the available ecological space is distributed (more) fairly. To achieve this, a just distribution of (clean) technology and prosperity is essential. Whether that process has a chance of success depends largely on the degree of mutual (mis)trust, which is expressed, among other things, in ‘self-interest first’ (or: ‘own business/technology first’), the exclusion of migrants (who, by the way, could excellently strengthen the labor market in the Netherlands and elsewhere), and the entrenchment in very expensive weapons systems. To break through that mistrust, a growing awareness is needed, leading to a moral/ethical revolution (metanoia).
It is clear that a major task is reserved here for (among others) religious organizations, worldwide, regionally and nationally. The Dutch churches could consider appointing special climate/sustainability officers, as is customary in many sister churches in neighboring countries. CEC/CCEE, the World Council of Churches, and the Netherlands’ own international church associations with their climate/sustainability programs are also relevant to the Netherlands. From a social perspective, Germany is particularly interesting: the new government coalition there is aiming for rapid sustainability, supported by the EKD and other German churches.
December 7, 2021 / March 1, 2022
Marijke van Duin
Member of the Theology, Church and Sustainability working group of the CoC-NL, chair of the Creation and Sustainability network of the CoC-NL, member of the climate working group of the World Council of Churches, observer at the UNFCCC climate COPs