The Power and Perils of Consensus-Building at COP 26
By Lily Hartzell
The twenty-sixth UN climate change convention has just wrapped up in Glasgow. While there, I found myself sitting in a windowless room, watching a video feed of negotiations occurring next door. Representatives from all over the world were debating the technicalities of which countries should have the right to receive funds from and/or sit on the board of the Adaptation Fund, a UN mechanism designed to channel money from developed nations to those most vulnerable to climate change to assist in preparing for its worst effects.
The negotiators were struggling to reach an agreement, and time was running out. The facilitators urged South Africa and the U.S. to meet separately in a last-ditch effort to iron out their legal disagreements and adjourned the session. I was left scratching my head.
The issue was not that I was uninterested in the technicalities of the negotiation. I have been wanting to attend the annual UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) since I was in high school. To me, these meetings represented our best chance at forging a global solution to the most wicked of global problems. The issue was that I was astounded by its pace, or lack thereof. These same countries had been negotiating this same wording for years, while the climate crisis has continued to spiral out of control. It begged the question: are COPs a worthwhile forum?
The answer I came to during my week on the ground in Glasgow is mostly, and rather incredibly, yes. The UNFCCC operates through consensus, which means that Niue is given just as much airtime as Russia. COP serves as a platform for small island developing states to directly address those sentencing them to oblivion and demand that they do better. In fact, my experience at COP was one of being overwhelmed by the stories of least developed countries and small island states. These countries have done almost nothing to contribute to global emissions, yet they have some of the most ambitious mitigation plans in the world. Even then, they will be submerged, or parched, in just a few short years without dramatic collective action on the part of the super-emitters.
The statements of the Maldives, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia were not just symbolic gestures that elicit tears and applause and little else. The agreement made in Glasgow, like the Paris Agreement and others before it, represents more than the least common denominator. The U.S. likely did not enter the talks prepared to agree to a separate funding mechanism for “loss and damage” payments to assist affected nations with the inevitable impacts of climate change. Nevertheless, the Glasgow Climate Pact pushes developed nations to contribute to operationalizing a network that will connect developing nations with loss and damage finance, and many expect a stand-alone fund for the issue to make it on the agenda for COP27. Australia, Poland, and Indonesia rely heavily on coal, but the Pact states that parties will phase down its use.
Watching almost 200 countries come to consensus on politically vexing and technical questions was much smoother than I imagined. Every country that spoke in one of the final plenary sessions I attended emphasized the importance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Consensus on that most fundamental of points was unimaginable just a few years ago.
The differences among the countries in attendance are not to be diminished. The U.S. and its partners continue to delay the creation of an additional funding source to compensate countries for loss and damage. Developed nations have yet to meet the target of $100 billion a year spent on climate financing for developing nations they set almost a decade ago, even though spending for COVID-19 recovery through July 2021 roughly totaled $17 trillion.
I understand the reaction of those who have called the process a failure in light of these realities. We are not moving quickly enough to avert the worst effects of climate change. Even if every country fully implements its current pledges, the world will still warm 2.4 degrees.
Nevertheless, while reaching consensus among nearly 200 countries can be painfully slow and does not result in the ambition necessary to “solve” climate change, consensus is what gives agreements like the Glasgow Pact their power. As large a forum as COP 26 puts immense political pressure on each country to step up to the plate and act. This is reinforced by the attendance of heads of states and protestors alike.
That is not to say that the negotiation process is perfect as is. Even as the urgency to act grows, the UNFCCC must improve its transparency and inclusivity. Watching India introduce an amendment to weaken the language from “phase out” fossil fuels to “phase down” coal was a heartbreaking conclusion to the conference in many ways. As several critics pointed out, the developing nations that had fought so hard to include mention of coal in the first place were given no chance to respond without spoiling the agreement.
COP President Alok Sharma acknowledged these injustices with an emotional apology before banging in the agreement. In many ways it was a fitting conclusion to a fraught process: a moment of hope wrought from the very messy process of consensus-building.
Lily is a MALD student studying climate diplomacy. Before Fletcher, she spent 18 months living in Beijing, working as a Princeton in Asia fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council and then as a freelance environmental journalist. Lily moved to DC at the start of 2020 and took a position on the China team at The Cohen Group, a government relations consulting firm. She graduated from Tufts University with a degree in International Relations and Environmental Studies.
COP26 Day 3 is by Dean Calma/IAEA and is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
