Are we expecting too much from COP26?

Or can the moment deliver?

On Sunday I’ll be heading up to Glasgow for a few days of no doubt non-stop action for COP26. Firstlight are sending a small team up to support our client the Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG).

We’re only a few days into the event but we’re already seeing a plethora of announcements come out of the summit as the world looks on, hoping that real and meaningful agreements will be reached that can help steer us away from climate disaster.

But are many of our hopes and wants from COP26 actually attainable? Or are we setting ourselves up for inevitable disappointment by expecting too much?

Through the drafting of our latest CCAG report COP26: The Decisive Moment it became clear that many of us simply expected too much from a process that is actually quite limited in what it can deliver. Some of the experts we’re lucky enough to work with were at pains to explain that a huge amount of time will be spent simply negotiating what goes on the agenda, let alone the items themselves.

These processes are tough, limited and arduous but they are also incredibly important. In formulating this CCAG report we asked the members to table what they believed was necessary to come out of this year’s COP to consider it a success. They came up with eight critical commitments they want to see:

1. Scrutiny and alignment between short-term and long-term emissions reduction goals
2. Commitment to step up to deliver on existing funding promises
3. Continue to develop funding arrangements for the future policy agreement on safeguarding carbon sinks in nature
4. Agreement to end use of coal, oil and gas: orderly, efficient, rapid – and fair
5. Agreement to put a price on carbon emissions across markets, economies and geographies
6. Aviation and shipping fuel to be taxed globally in line with other fossil fuels
7. Agreement for developed countries to fund GHG removal to bring CO2 equivalent GHGs down from 500 ppm today to 350 ppm by 2100
8. An agreement from developed economies to fund the development and roll-out of methods to repair the Arctic Circle, so that the Arctic sea is once again covered with ice during the polar summer

And yet only the first three of these are actually on the agenda – only three can be met by the COP26 framework itself.

So what of the others? Surely if they can’t be met by the process it’s unrealistic to ask for more and we’re just setting ourselves up for disappointment? Well, we don’t think so. Because COP isn’t just the process, it is a hugely significant moment that must be grasped.

The likes of Greta Thunberg and Sir David Attenborough are not flocking to Glasgow for long nights of grinding political negotiations. No, they’re going because they know this is a moment to be visible, to speak loudly and be heard whilst the eyes and ears of the world’s media are all in one spot.

It’s for this reason we can, and should, expect COP26 to deliver far more than simply what is on their agenda. In fact in the first week alone we’ve seen a series of commitments relating to ending use of coal and new targets for methane reduction. Critical steps, outside the process, that are perhaps signs of progress.

In the months and years to come, when we reflect on this COP26, will we look back and think it was a success or failure? At this stage it’s probably too early to say, but I’m optimistic. There are signs that major powers like India and China are stepping up and hopefully that trend continues. In the end whether these commitments are delivered through the process of the COP framework or simply from people maximising the moment, who really cares? Progress is progress.