Climate summit Glasgow, has it already failed?
The much-discussed Glasgow Climate Summit, the COP26 summit, started last Sunday. Media reporting in the run-up to the 26ste UN conference on climate change was anything but positive. This is what various news media headlines (such as Fidelity, NRC, F.D, NU.nl) already that the already published objectives of the various countries are not nearly enough to prevent the earth from rising more than 1.5 degrees. Is the successor to the conference that produced the much-discussed Treaty of Paris already doomed to failure?
The Treaty of Paris, groundbreaking as it was, was unprecedented at the time (and now). still) also critical counter-narratives. Then it became calculated that many of the national objectives, which were announced after the end of the treaty, were not sufficient to achieve the Paris goals.
The treaty is also called a 'framework treaty' because it is not legally binding on the participants. The actual details of how the goals are achieved must be determined in later treaties and at national level. This shortcoming was also the success of the treaty, as it was a break with years of (unsuccessful) efforts to create legal obligations surrounding a shared climate policy. Advocates of a more effective climate policy hoped that each subsequent treaty would produce increasingly strict measures.
Can it be concluded that, if progressive national objectives are not achieved, the COP26, and therefore also the Paris Treaty, have failed? At first glance, this is the obvious conclusion. Especially because we would rather see better global climate agreements yesterday rather than today. But maybe we should look at it differently. We can compare the various pessimistic scenarios presented in the media also come as warnings that are intended to put extra attention at the top.
It is also encouraging that the number of actions to enforce better policy continues to increase. Think of parties such as Urgenda representing the Dutch state accuses and Environmental Defense that Shell responsible for their emissions. Hopefully these signals from society bode well for a more pervasive approach, even if no immediate success is achieved at the COP26 summit. So there is still some hope for the philosophy of the Treaty of Paris.
Also look at our blog from last week to see what actions environmental organizations have achieved for the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
