OMNI UN COP26 Glasgow Followup, #1, 11-14/ 11-17, 2021

OMNI UN COP26 Glasgow Followup, #1, 11-14/ 11-17, 2021

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

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CONTENTS NOV. 14-
2014

Corporate Accountability 11-14

2015

Morning Star Online  11-15

2016
Earth Overshoot 11-16
 Extinction Rebellion 11-16

Avaaz 11-16

Alexandria Octavia-Cortez  11-16

2017

Insider, Sierra Magazine, 11-17

Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, 11-17

TEXTS NOV. 14-

NOVEMBER 14, 2021

As we run out of time to save the planet, COP26 ends in ‘utter betrayal’

Originally published: The Canary by Peadar O'Cearnaigh (November 14, 2021 )  |  - Posted Nov 16, 2021

Climate Change, Environment, Movements, StrategyGlobalNewswireExtinction Rebellion, Glasgow Climate Pact, Greta Thunberg, United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26)

Following two weeks of negotiations, the UN climate summit COP26 concluded with the Glasgow Climate Pact. The supposed aim of this pact, signed by 197 countries, is to keep hopes alive of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels by the year 2100.

As reported by the Guardian, the pact has been labelled “imperfect”. And prime minister Boris Johnson said “there is still a huge amount more to do in the coming years”. The UK, which hosted COP26, says the pact keeps alive hopes that we’ll avoid the worst of global warming. However, environmental activist Greta Thunberg was having none of it:

“Utter betrayal”

As the leaders were putting the final touches to their pact, Thunberg predicted a spin on the outcome. Then came a warning from environmental journalist George Monbiot:
Earlier Monbiot had been even more damning. He called the pact a “total fiasco” and a
pathetic limp rag of a document. Demonstrating that [COP26 leaders] are not here to protect life on Earth but to protect the fossil fuel industry from challenge: MORE  https://mronline.org/2021/11/16/as-we-run-out-of-time-to-save-the-planet-cop26-ends-in-utter-betrayal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=as-we-run-out-of-time-to-save-the-planet-cop26-ends-in-utter-betrayal&mc_cid=8407822def&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e

COP26 was a failure. But the people’s alternative can still be a success.   Editor.  Mronline.org (11-16-21)

Has COP26, which has wound up in Glasgow after two weeks of political showboating and grassroots protest, been a failure?   
Originally published: Morning Star Online by Morning Star Online Desk (November 2021 )  |  - Posted Nov 15, 2021

Climate Change, Environment, Movements, StrategyGlobalNewswireUnited Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26)

Has COP26, which has wound up in Glasgow after two weeks of political showboating and grassroots protest, been a failure?

In one sense the answer is yes. Lobbying by fossil fuel interests has seriously weakened proposals to phase out subsidies for coal, oil and gas.

The richest nations tried to present themselves as climate saviours while shunting the blame onto developing countries: witness the way U.S. President Joe Biden accused China of “a lack of urgency” on global warming when U.S. emissions per head are more than twice China’s and will still be higher than China’s and India’s put together even if Washington meets all its 2030 reduction targets–which it won’t, if the trouble Biden’s green infrastructure legislation has run into in the U.S. Senate is any guide.

There have been impressive-sounding pledges on financial assistance to the developing world; but these may share the fate of the 2009 promise to offer $100 billion (£75bn) a year to help global South countries adapt to the threat of climate change.

The sum has not been met. It is dwarfed by the more than $3 trillion in subsidies G20 countries have provided for fossil fuel industries since 2015, or for that matter the $750bn spent by the United States on its military over the last year.

If the agreement sounds like too little, too late, the reality is worse, because the politicians signing up cannot be trusted.

Brazil has signed up to ending deforestation by 2030: yet under President Jair Bolsonaro this is accelerating, not slowing. This August we learned an area seven times the size of greater London had been felled in the last year alone, the worst assault on the Amazon in a decade.

Indonesia combines the same promise with plans to double palm oil production in the next decade: presumably if it is serious about retiring the chainsaws in 2030 that’s because it doesn’t expect there to be any forest left.

Indigenous representatives placing the blame on colonialism have a point, and the destruction goes alongside trampling on indigenous rights from Brazil to India, where the Narendra Modi government perversely claims conservation as a reason to expel adivasis from their ancestral lands–depicting them, without evidence, as a threat to endangered wildlife–before awarding logging and mining contracts in the “protected” areas.

The “too little, too late” narrative is misleading because it implies governments are acting to address climate change but need to get their skates on. In fact the world’s wealthiest countries show no sign of abandoning business as usual.

The reason is obvious: an economic system that rewards short-term profit over long-term sustainability cannot reconcile itself to the logic of “keep it in the ground.”

And as capitalism has evolved it has become shorter and shorter-term in outlook: the length of time investors hang onto shares has been shrinking for decades, from around eight years in 1960 to just five months by 2020, incentivising reckless asset-stripping and plunder over long-term resource management.

This is not a system which is capable of addressing climate change, so the summit was a failure. Real action requires taking public control of the economy and removing “investors’” profits from the equation.

Yet the other summit–the mass demonstrations, the trade union and NGO meetings, the climate activists who joined striking workers on picket lines–can still be a success.

Unity between the labour movement and demonstrators for ecological and social justice is a precondition for transformative change. Only organised labour can challenge the power of capital: and a broad-based anti-monopolies alliance of unions with community and campaigning organisations could carry real political weight.

Since the defeat of Corbynism in 2019 the Establishment has done its best to silence or belittle anyone who believes that another world is possible. But the riotous “alternative” Cop26 shows that millions still do.

Monthly Review does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished at MR Online. Our goal is to share a variety of left perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds.

NOVEMBER 15??

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

Global Newsletter 58: The End of The World As We Know It

We all did this

COP26: explained, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Dick, If you’ve been following Alexandria’s Instagram over the last week, you know that she’s been sharing a lot of “behind the scenes” footage from COP26 – the UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. 

Now that COP has officially concluded, we wanted to share some of Alexandria’s thoughts about how we should view the outcomes of the summit. We know some folks are understandably disappointed, so we want to break it down – because there is some good news here, as well as areas where we need to keep pushing. 

This is a longer than usual email, but we hope you take the time to read it –  because your activism is critical to what happens next.

Before we start…what is COP?  

COP is short for the “Conference of Parties,” but essentially it’s the international climate summit hosted by the UN each year. This is the 26th year, which is why this year is COP26.¹ 

Is COP a joke? Is it useless? 

This is an important question. You might have heard some people say COP is a waste of time or just a lot of talk. 

But Alexandria’s experience boils down to this: COP is important even if we are disappointed by it. 

Here’s why COP is important: 

If we write off COP as useless and choose to ignore it – the consequences will be huge. Because the truth is, the pressure from grassroots organizers is working. 

The commitments that came out of COP were much stronger than they would have otherwise been because of the pressure from the outside. 

In the negotiations, Alexandria saw global leaders at the highest levels being very concerned and nervous about public sentiment and opinion. In prior COPs and climate summits, many of these leaders were not as worried because they didn’t think people were watching. 

So what happened at COP? Tell us the good, bad, and the ugly. 

There’s good news and bad news. We’ll start with the bad news. 

The ambition and timelines for action are not good enough – especially if you are under the age of 40 and will live to see the consequences. The commitment to “net zero emissions by 2050” is simply not enough. 

“Net zero” does not mean zero emissions. What it means is that by 2050, we will still be emitting fossil fuels. The “net” theory goes that we will be investing in so much drawdown technology and practices that the amount that we drawdown will be equal to what we’re emitting. 

That is not acceptable if we want to stick to 1.5 degrees of warming. What we are seeing in terms of climate impacts is only just the beginning. It will only get worse. This is just science. 

If the pace of emissions continues, we would reach 4 degrees of warming by 2100. At that point, half of all landmass on Earth will be uninhabitable to human life due to floods, drought, wildfires, sea level rise, etc. 

Governments have had 30 years to address this problem. About half of all emissions on Earth have all been emitted since the first episode of Seinfeld aired. We’re tired of waiting.

Here’s the good news. 

There’s obvious signs the pressure from advocates is working. Much of the news from COP may feel underwhelming, but there is also some that is really promising. Consider the agreement reached by the U.S. and China. Together, these two countries account for 40% of total global emissions - yet, until COP26, we’d never agreed to work together to address climate emissions. Often, the U.S. and China are at odds on global policies. The agreement to work together is a significant step toward taking “concrete actions” to reduce global emissions. 

If governments won’t step up enough, what can we do?

If the world is relying on governments to stop climate change, that is not going to happen. Governments are a critical aspect of solving climate change, but they are not the only ones. 

Grassroots organizing is going to be very important – and not just protesting. There’s other kinds of organizing that we need to engage in to change the systems that are driving this crisis. 

For example, we need to organize new ways of operating in our communities that both address climate and systemic inequities. This can look like creating working co-ops or community solar power, which we saw take off in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. 

These examples are crucial to providing models for how alternative and cooperative models can work, and it takes organizing to build them. 

Naming the positive structures that we want to see – cooperative economies vs competitive, extractive ones – helps visualize the world we are fighting for and what we want.