COOP 26: This Is Not Where We Act On Climate Change

I remember the first time that I attended a United Nation´s Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP). It was billed as the most important COP ever to address the climate crisis. It was so important that nearly two years before it was to occur one of the largest climate marches in the history of the world was being planned. And one year later it was implemented in September 2014 during the United Nations General Assembly.

I was one of many people from a variety of organizations who took part in the planning process, organizing, and doing outreach to get people out and engaged in the People´s Climate March. A year later I was in a different role that would throw me into the belly of beast of the climate and environment world. And this would include being involved with COP21 in Paris, France.

There was a question that I had in pre People´s Climate March planning and during the implementation phase, “To what end does this March get us closer to action on the most important global climate and environmental crisis?” The that I heard was, an Agreement of the Parties in Paris at the COP. And then we will have action on climate change.

After COP21 I asked a similar question, “To what end does the Paris Agreement gets us closer to addressing the most important global climate and environmental crisis?” The answer was that countries will commit to greater ambition now and will raise it by 2020. Hilary Clinton´s lost in the 2016 election derailed that hope, and momentum was further delayed due to the COVID 19 pandemic.

Here were are once again and the fever pitch of the UNFCCC COP is at an all time high. For the next two weeks it will seem that everything that matters, regarding the climate crisis, hinges on two weeks starting on October 31st and ending on November 12th. All of the hyped expectations and dedication that is put into it by people who want to address climate change will be represented there.

To what end?

What I have come to understand, that is abundantly clear, is that the UNFCCC is not where the climate crisis will be solved. The UNFCCC COP is a mix of political theater, academic conference, civil society advocacy on steroids and a global networking event. It has all the ingredients to be effective. And the fact that it is the only international space for climate issues on a global scale makes sense that the expectations for it are high. But it is the space for governance for the climate crisis, not action.

It is important to make this point because I have had so many conversations and discussions with people who don´t earn their living or spend their time living and breathing the COP process, but who think that the climate crisis will be solved by the COP process.

The UNFCCC COP is an international framework for countries to commit to act on climate, however it is within the subnational, regional and local political efforts that actual actionable solutions will derive from. Because the UNFCCC does not have the ability to enforce the various governments to act.

This is not to say that there isn’t a role for governance to play in addressing climate change. We need the broad multi-stakeholder engagement that the UNFCCC brings together and the dialogue it promotes between member countries to try to find a way to address climate change as global governments.

As long as the driving force for climate action is believed to come from the UNFCCC space there will not be a change in the pattern of behavior that is contributing in making this desperate situation even more worse. The COP should not be given the sole responsibility to hold the global discourse, approaches, processes and implementation for action. It is, quite frankly, not set up to do so.

And for many in civil society the COP has come to represent an opportunity to leverage campaigns to be able to force onto and into a process that struggles to find agreement amongst 196 countries, all of which have their own agendas, by taking to the streets to protest on the outside and the inside. Yes, these tactics have been useful in creating opportunities for pushing the countries to “do more” within the context of the UNFCCC, however in reality this has resulted in catchy slogans and reports.

The current system´s pattern for delivering on climate and environment action is failing. There needs to be a shift in the approach and in expectations. Asking world leaders to act over and over again at the UNFCCC is a dead end street because the pressure to move them will come from the outside of the UNFCCC and the COP process. For all of those people who are waiting for the climate to be solved at the end of COP26 don´t expect the climate crisis to be solved. It will not.

A global response to the climate crisis is aspirational. And it is wrought with all of the pitfalls of global political reasoning for the lack of effective action. Because we forget that the power lays in the pressure that is exacted at the country level by its citizens and their leverage to bend the arc of action towards real solutions.

The outside process, local campaigns, policy, political pressure, new ideas and dialogue is key to the success of effective governance within the UNFCCC that will then be able to support effective action on climate change. Outside of the UNFCCC COP process.The success of the work done on the ground developing effective equitable and just solutions that can be championed within each country will move us to real action. You the ordinary people make climate action possible.

You speed up the action. You focus the purpose and desire for real action. You are the most valuable asset in the fight against the climate crisis. The work effective action happens where you are.

You are the climate hero you have been waiting for.

Written by Tina Johnson Founding Director, Pattern Change Lab