Toward a Culture of Care: COP26 climate and policy issues

The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26) takes place from October 31 to November 12, 2021, at the Scottish Event Campus, Glasgow, UK. It was postponed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Extreme climate events are becoming more numerous and intense and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Working Group One has just published an alarming report. This conference, organized together with Italy, marks a crucial step in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. What can we expect?

On October 4, Pope Francis met with various religious leaders and scientists to sign a joint appeal ahead of COP26. The inspiration for this meeting, which was preceded by months of intense dialogue, was, in the terms of the appeal, “to raise awareness of the unprecedented challenges that threaten us and life on our beautiful common home […] and of the necessity of an even deeper solidarity in the face of the global pandemic and of growing concern for our common home.”[1]

During that meeting a strong convergence of the different religious and spiritual traditions present emerged concerning the urgent need for a change of course, a decisive and firm move away from the “culture of waste” that prevails in our societies, and toward a “culture of care.” How can COP26 become a step in this direction? 

Context and climate management

In December 2015, the 196 parties present at COP21 adopted the Paris Agreement. Its main intent is to keep the increase in  global warming “well below 2°C” and to continue efforts to keep it at +1.5°C above the levels of two centuries ago, in order to achieve the ultimate goal of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  This is to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the Earth’s climate system.” To accomplish this, countries must cap and then decrease their greenhouse gas emissions in order to achieve a balance between emissions and absorption in the second half of this century.[2] The fact that industrial carbon capture and storage techniques are likely to absorb only a marginal amount of the carbon released into the atmosphere  means that all humanity must aim for near-zero emissions by the last quarter of this century.

The IPCC confirmed in its August 2021 report that achieving such an equilibrium would stabilize global temperatures. It is understood that developing countries may take longer to reach the cap on their emissions, and that reaching the target will be done “on the basis of equity, and in the context of sustainable development and poverty alleviation” (Article 4 of the Paris Agreement). However, this call for an equitable resolution of the ecological challenge within the international community remains vague and ambiguous.

In order to reach the cap and therefore the reduction of emissions as quickly as possible, the Agreement establishes a mechanism to strengthen and monitor the parties’ climate ambitions. Each country must “define, report and update” Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), indicating the emission reduction and climate disaster adaptation measures it envisions over a given period.

Every five years, the NDCs must be renewed or updated, each time with enhanced ambitions and targets. In principle, there is therefore no possibility of going backward. Equally, every five years a global review, on the basis of the “best available scientific data,” will assess the progress of climate action with a view to strengthening the subsequent NDCs. For developing countries, some of the commitments in the NDCs may be conditional, which means that the achievement of their goals depends on external financial support from developed countries. For other countries, however, they represent unconditional, albeit non-binding, commitments.

The current situation

Working Group One of the IPCC, which deals with the physical and scientific basis of climate change, published its latest report in early August 2021.[3] The other two working groups, dedicated to impacts, vulnerability and adaptation (Group Two) and emissions reduction (Group Three), will publish their report in Spring, 2022. A synthesis report, summarizing all the work of the three groups, will be published in October 2022. This impressive body of knowledge will be used at the global review of efforts to combat climate change scheduled for 2023 in the framework of the Paris Agreement.

The report confirms that the global temperature increase reached +1.09°C in the period 2011-20 compared to the pre-industrial era. This warming is certainly and unequivocally caused by human activities. Other changes in different components of the climate system are determined by human influence, with more or less certainty.  These include: increased precipitation, retreating glaciers, decreasing snow cover in the northern hemisphere, strong warming of the surface layers of the oceans and  rising sea levels.

These changes, on time scales ranging from several centuries to several hundred thousand years, are unprecedented Some of them, in particular those involving the ocean and ice caps, are already irreversible on the scale of several centuries, if not the next millennia. This is, in particular, the case for sea level rises, which are expected to continue for hundreds of years. The extent of this rise depends on current and future emissions, but there is no doubt by now that the face of the landmass of our planet will be unrecognizable in the 22nd century. According to some estimates, half of Bangladesh and Vietnam’s Mekong Delta will be under water before 2050. England and the United States are already preparing dams to protect London and New York. Indonesia recently announced it would move the nation’s capital due to the sea’s gradual incursion on Jakarta. All our coastlines will be profoundly transformed within a generation.

A group of researchers specializing in this field, World Weather Attribution,[4] has worked on several extreme events that occurred in 2021, demonstrating a climate change influence on the probability of their occurrence and their intensity.  This  is the case with the late cold period in France in April, the intense heat wave at the end of June in North America, and the catastrophic floods in Belgium and Germany in July. It is therefore now a given that the increased frequency of heavy rainfall, heatwaves, droughts and cyclones in recent years is due to human activity. The good news is that, despite rising sea levels, it is possible to change the factors intensifying these weather disasters very quickly by reducing our emissions. The results of the efforts we are making today should be clear in 20 years’ time.

When it comes to the future, the projections indicate that the +1.5°C threshold could be exceeded as early as the early 2030s in most scenarios. Only two of the five scenarios presented by the IPCC predict compliance with the Paris Agreement by the end of the century: the first, stabilizing the temperature below +2°C; the second, below +1.5°C. Both scenarios require immediate and drastic reductions in emissions, but few in the scientific community believe this will happen. We will therefore have to adapt to the potentially catastrophic consequences of the other three IPCC scenarios, which predict average increases of between +2.7°C and +4.4°C over the period 2081-2100, depending on different levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The report also indicates that “low probability but high impact” events, such as accelerated melting of ice sheets, abrupt changes in ocean circulation or even a combination of several extreme events, cannot be ruled out if emissions continue. The Gulf Stream could move away from Europe and turn the climate of Paris into that of New York. Siberian permafrost could continue to melt and release the methane it contains, abruptly accelerating warming to temperatures that, according to some, could reach +6°C or +7°C in the next century. Humanity’s survival would then likely be at risk.

COP26 will be an opportunity to renegotiate the NDCs of each of the UN member countries. It is therefore crucial to understand and anticipate the impact that these commitments may have on the climate. The most recent work[5] shows that the NDCs of the Paris Agreement are leading us to a warming of just under +3°C in 2100. Since 2015, a form of collective schizophrenia on the part of the international community has been perceptible, as national commitments did not allow for compliance with the Agreement.

What is more, these commitments remain unfulfilled: policies currently in place take us to just over +3°C at the end of the century, on average. Now, as the 2018 interim report showed,[6] every fraction of a degree counts. A good analogy is that of a fever: there are as many differences between a +2.5°C and +3°C warming as there are between a 39°C and a 40°C fever. The revised NDCs, as well as commitments that have not yet been made official, could take us to +2.7°C.[7] This is good news, although it is still not enough. It is also necessary that these commitments are confirmed during COP26 and, above all, that they are maintained or strengthened. Countries can still deposit or modify their NDCs until the of the COP, at which time a new summary with the latest commitments will be published.

COP26: objectives and challenges

Hundreds of delegates are expected in Glasgow in the “blue zone,” reserved for official negotiations, and thousands of participants from civil society, NGOs and professionals will meet and discuss in the “green zone,” open to the public. Many voices have been raised in recent months to protest against the holding of the COP in a time of pandemic. For some delegates, as well as for some members of NGOs and civil society,[8] especially for some leaders of indigenous peoples,[9] it is very difficult, if not impossible, to travel to Glasgow and attend the conference. This is particularly the case for African delegations, who do not have the same resources as delegations from other regions, nor the same access to vaccination.[10] It is therefore likely that the imbalances affecting participants due to disparities in the management of the Covid-19 pandemic will affect the fairness of the negotiations that will take place in Glasgow.

One of the main objectives presented by the organizers is to increase commitments to align emission trajectories by 2030 as closely as possible with the carbon neutrality targets of the Paris Agreement.[11] It has been said that this target, which will be carefully screened by observers, seems almost impossible to achieve, given the Nationally Determined Contributions already stated. The fact remains that all climate simulations show that the decisions that will be taken (or not taken) during the 2020 decade will be decisive for the degree of warming during the entire century. Therefore, the level of the commitments that will be made in Glasgow promises to be decisive for the coming decades.

The second objective of COP26 is adaptation to ecological disasters that are already underway. This is not sufficiently taken into account in climate policies and negotiations, while the impacts of global warming are increasing, particularly in the most vulnerable countries and regions. Extreme events – rising sea levels or changes in the water cycle – endanger ecosystems and populations, and these impacts will continue to intensify and become more numerous in the coming years. Let us take two examples.

1) Access to potable water in Italy could decrease by more than 40 percent by 2040.[12]  Now, you can live a few days without electricity, but no human community can survive without water. This implies that seawater desalination projects must be considered now. Morocco and Tunisia have been working on this for several years. Spain and Portugal, in turn, are planning to build desalination plants. The difficulty is that desalination requires a lot of energy and is expensive. Public spending is likely to be a problem in the context of the budgetary austerity imposed by the “frugal” countries of the European Union, which are also less affected by water stress.[13]

Furthermore, the energy needed for desalination, in turn, must be “green.” But the infrastructure for photovoltaics and wind power requires huge amounts of copper. Besides the fact that mining itself is not without consequences for natural ecosystems, it turns out that copper is one of the minerals that will become increasingly scarce in the coming years: its extraction will require more and more energy and water.[14] Fortunately today – in France and Germany – people know how to make organic photovoltaics, which require very few minerals to produce electricity.

Will this revolutionary technology make it possible to break down the barriers to accessing water in southern Europe? It depends on the ability of European industry to scale up this technology very quickly, which requires a banking sector capable of financing such an investment effort. But the banking sector, for the moment, is refusing to provide the necessary financing for this change. Why is that? Because many of Europe’s big banks are so dependent on fossil fuels that they would be bankrupt if we could do without coal, oil and gas in the future.[15] So, in order to ensure that Italians have access to clean water in 2040, there is an urgent need to regulate and reform the European banking sector.

2) In a speech at the G20 summit dedicated to interreligious dialogue, in Bologna, on September 12, 2021, religious and spiritual leaders were urged to make a concrete proposal to the G20: that of accelerating the passage from industrial and intensive agriculture that destroys our planet to ecological agriculture (such as permaculture and agroforestry). Among the institutions that can dialogue with the small-scale farmers who feed humanity, religious organizations play a special role. They are called upon to promote agricultural practices that would at the same time preserve domestic and wild biodiversity and provide solutions to the immense problem of malnutrition. However, one of the major obstacles to the conversion of agricultural practices to agroecology is the over-indebtedness of farmers. In India, on average, every 28 minutes a farmer commits suicide in an attempt to escape the despair of debt. Implementing financial solutions consisting of cancelling part of these debts in exchange for converting to less carbon-emitting agroecology is perfectly possible and has been practiced by the World Bank for a long time now. This is where a dialogue between the religious and spiritual communities, the G20 and the FAO would be extremely helpful in promoting this kind of solution.

These two examples show the economic, political, technological, social and spiritual complexity involved in the challenges of adaptation.

The pandemic has also allowed us to become aware of the seriousness of global health challenges. Global warming threatens to exacerbate these problems. In early October, the World Health Organization, supported by millions of doctors worldwide, warned of the risks of climate change to human health.[16] Global warming will promote the spread of tropical diseases beyond their current range of prevalence. In all likelihood, malaria is expected to reappear in Mexico and the southern United States before 2050. From this perspective, the very recent discovery of a malaria vaccine is good news for humanity, news that has been expected for far too long. But many other pandemics may spread because of global warming. So all health systems throughout the world need to be quickly adapted to this new situation. Here, too, the commitments that may be made in Glasgow will be decisive.

The third objective of the COP26 concerns the obligation, enshrined in the Paris Agreement, for developed countries to provide financial assistance to developing countries for both mitigation and adaptation measures. In 2015, a target of $100 billion per year was set, to be allocated from 2020. The OECD estimated that $78.9 billion had been released in 2018 and the final figure for 2020 has not yet been set. However, it seems that the target has not been met.[17] Worse, the numbers declared are questioned by some NGOs.[18]

Finally, the delegations must agree to finalize the “Paris Rulebook,” which defines the specific rules for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. In particular, Article 6 – which offers the possibility for countries to establish cooperation mechanisms, especially carbon markets – has been the subject of lengthy negotiations.[19] Yet carbon markets are by no means a panacea: those that already exist have so far all been failures. As the Stern-Stiglitz report clearly indicates, a carbon tax would be much more effective.[20] It is to be feared that much time and diplomatic energy will be spent on the issue of carbon markets simply because the financial world has realized that this is potentially a colossal source of profit. The negotiations are therefore in danger of losing sight of the general interest.

It is time to act

What should we expect from COP26? The themes of justice and equity will be at the heart of the debates, especially with regard to the financial aid granted to developing countries for reducing emissions and adapting to the ecological catastrophes already underway. Will the industrialized countries finally realize their historical responsibilities in the accumulation of emissions and will they keep the commitments made by signing the Paris Agreement?

In fact, climate negotiations are not simply a once a year affair, during the COPs. Strengthening climate commitments is now a permanent task. This has been seen in recent months, as many important announcements have been made by China, the European Union, the United States and many other countries.[21] All have promised to strengthen their commitments. However, for some, the task of formalizing them in their NDCs still remains, otherwise these promises will remain a dead letter. We are now entering the negotiation phase, which consists, for each country, in transforming its emission reduction targets into precise national strategies, and then into concrete and operational climate policies. It is therefore now at the national level that specific climate action must be taken. The COPs are destined to become more and more arenas for global organization and for monitoring the sincerity of commitments, but the essential part of climate policies will have to be prepared, implemented and evaluated at the national level.[22]

In order to ensure that the commitments and objectives laid down by the states are followed up and achieved, it is necessary to mobilize all the components of society. Businesses, associations and citizens must not lower their level of involvement. Of course they should also actively participate in the climate policies of their countries and regions. For this, a variety of means could prove effective: lobbying, petitions, demonstrations or even legal action on climate, as was done recently in France in the context of the Affaire du Siècle.[23] The French state has been ordered to repair the ecological damage caused by its failure to meet the carbon budgets it had initially planned for 2015-18. More generally, what is now at stake is the shift to action from what Pope Francis calls a “culture of waste,” which characterizes many industrialized societies, to a “culture of care.”[24] This is why the COPs are an indispensable forum for negotiating between nation states on their commitments and their reinforcement.

But the urgency is now such that progress must be possible everywhere, within civil society and with the collaboration of each one of us. Just one example will suffice to demonstrate this: even today, it seems that one third of the food stored in the refrigerators of families in industrialized countries is not consumed, but thrown away. When will we learn to put an end to this indecent waste in a world where 800 million people suffer from malnutrition, a waste that also contributes to global warming? When will we learn to limit meat consumption to reduce the carbon and environmental footprint of our diet? When will we establish rules for the use of the internet, whose giant data centers are responsible for more than 4 percent of our emissions? We need to think about how to change our mindset from the prevailing consumerism. The individual citizen cannot do everything, of course. But it would be irresponsible to expect everything from large international meetings such as the COPs. They can only encourage and record the progress made in the field by each person, each community, each city and each country.[25]

DOI: La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no.11 art. 12, 1121: 10.32009/22072446.1121.12

[1].    “Meeting ‘Faith and Science: towards COP26’, sponsored by the Embassies of Great Britain and Italy to the Holy See”, in Bulletin of the Vatican Press Office, October 4, 2021.

[2].    This should be achieved even before 2050, if we are to have any chance of staying below the +1.5°C ceiling. We will return to this point later. See also P. de Charentenay, “Luci e ombre sulla Cop21”, in Civ. Catt. 2016 I 363-372.

[3].    See IPPC, “Sixth Assessment Report”, in www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6

[4].    See www.worldweatherattribution.org/analyses

[5].    See “Wave of net zero emission targets opens window to meeting the Paris Agreement”, in Nature (go.nature.com/27dGLvb), September 16, 2021.

[6].    See Global Warming of 1.5°C (www.IPCC.ch/sr15).

[7]  .   See UNFCCC, Full NDC Synthesis Report: Some Progress, but Still a Big Concern (bit.ly/UNFCCCReport), September 17, 2021.

[8]  .   See J. Van der Made, “NGOs say COP26 climate summit must be postponed”, in RFI (bit.ly/ONGCOP26), September 7, 2021.

[9]  .   See M. A. Pember, “Indigenous leaders face barriers to UN climate conference”, in Indian Country Today (bit.ly/ICTCOP26), September 16, 2021.

[10].   See E. Barthet – A. Garric, “COP26: les délégations africaines à la peine pour se rendre à Glasgow”, in Le Monde (bit.ly/LMCOP26), October 11, 2021.

[11].   See “COP26 explained”, in
https://ukCOP26.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/COP26-Explained.pdf

[12].   See Ranking of countries with the highest water stress (bit.ly/WATERSTRESS).

[13].   This does not mean that we are spared the consequences of global warming: the floods in Germany in the summer of 2021 bear witness to this.

[14].   Cf. O. Vidal – F. Rostom – C. François – G. Giraud, “Global Trends in Metal Consumption and Supply: The Raw Material-Energy Nexus,” in Elements, 13 (2017) 319-324; “Prey-Predator Long-Term Modelling of Copper Reserves, Production, Recycling, Price and Cost of Production,” in Environmental Science and Technology, No. 53, 2019, 11323-11336.

[15].   Cf. G. Giraud et Al., “Fossil assets ‘the new subprimes’?”, in Reclaim Finance (https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/06/10/fossil-fuel-assets-the-new-subprimes-report), June 2021.

[16].   See WHO, “WHO’s 10 calls for climate action to ensure sustained recovery from COVID-19” (bit.ly/30NY5rl), October 11, 2021.

[17].   See K. Abnett, “L’objectif de 100 milliards de dollars pour le climat n’a sans doute pas été atteint, dit l’OCDE”, in Reuters (reut.rs/3Efu2as), September 17, 2021.

[18].   See “2020: les vrais chiffres des financements climat”, in www.oxfamfrance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2020-Les-vrais-chiffres-des-financements-climat.pdf

[19].   See “In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement”, in www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-q-and-a-how-article-6-carbon-markets-could-make-or-break-the-paris-agreement

[20].   See “Report of the high-level commission on carbon prices”, in www.carbonpricingleadership.org/report-of-the-highlevel-commission-on-carbon-prices

[21].   See www.climateactiontracker.org/countries

[22].   See “COP26: what’s the point of this year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow?”, in The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/COP26-whats-the-point-of-this-years-un-climate-summit-in-glasgow-167509), October 6, 2021.

[23].   A. Garric – S. Mandard, “‘L’affaire du siècle’: la justice ordonne au gouvernement de ‘reparer le préjudice écologique’ dont il est responsable”, in Le Monde (www.lemonde.fr/climat/article/2021/10/14/l-affaire-du-siecle-la-justice-ordonne-au-gouvernement-de-reparer-le-prejudice-ecologique-dont-il-est-responsable_6098357_1652612.html) October 14, 2021.

[24].   Francis, Address to participants at the preparatory interparliamentary meeting for COP26, October 9, 2021, in www.vatican.va

[25].   The authors thank Elena de Nictolis for her help in the composition of this article.