ANALYSIS | Press book: from the front against climate change to COP26, the gap between speeches and reality is great

CNN’s chief climate correspondent Bill Weir attended last week’s COP26, an international climate summit in which world leaders try to limit global warming in the future.

Glasgow, Scotland (CNN) – Alongside the gigantic model of the Earth that rotates slowly in the air, meanders a maze of stalls and exhibitors that compete for the eyes of visitors. Around him socialize world leaders and delegates, each sent to Scotland to negotiate climate action on behalf of their nations.
On paper, your challenge is simple enough for a fourth grader to understand: the same fossil fuels that built the modern world are destroying it. The same energy sources that fueled the innovation that lengthened human life are shortening the lives of the most vulnerable. We have to do something. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

But in practice, that “something” will be the hardest problem for humans to solve, and the sensory riot at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro stadium, named after a natural gas company, is the proof.

For example in the case of Australia. The Australia outpost was said to have the best coffee, and while I couldn’t investigate, I can confirm that the nation’s outpost led by formerly climate change skeptic Scott Morrison carries the Santos logo, an Australian oil and gas company.

While the leaders of China and Russia were conspicuous by their absence, there is a faux birch grove on the Swedish booth, and on the French booth, the #MakeOurPlanetGreatAgain signage feels like a holdover from 2020, when Donald Trump retired States. United from their promises of the Paris Agreement in one of the most heinous escapes in human history.

Much of the COP props is illustrated with nature scenes or the gaze of disappointed children, but few will stop you in your tracks like the small Pacific island nation Tuvalu exhibit, which features a large cartoon sculpture by eco-artist Vincent. Huang with scared polar bears huddled in orange life jackets and a penguin hanging from a rope. It is up to the viewer to decide whether the poor creature was executed or committed suicide.

“A combination of diplomacy, trade fair and circus” is like science fiction novelist Kim Stanley Robinson described the ritual of the Conference of the Parties upon receipt of your invitation. His latest dystopian novel, “The Ministry for the Future“is named after an imaginary United Nations task force that was formed after a heat wave in India killed 20 million people in one week.

Against a backdrop of industrial sabotage, bioterrorism, and bitcoin bankruptcies, the book’s leading bureaucrats are rushing to unleash feats of geoengineering like jetliners equipped to spray forms of sunscreen across the sky in a desperate effort to shade the sky. planet, reduce the heat and buy some time for our self-destructive species.

This idea is no longer the product of fiction. We’ve reached a point where the climate models are so bleak that brilliant minds, from Harvard to Cambridge, are actively working on ideas in an emergency, just in case this COP ends up as the first 25, with increased pollution. that cooks the planet.

Global warming has only gotten worse since the first major climate summit

Since the first World Climate Conference in 1979, several international meetings have been held to address global warming. Despite numerous promises about the climate, significant political changes have been rare, while temperatures have continued to rise.

But no one came to Glasgow to discuss the best sunscreen for the sky. They came looking for signs of hope, and after a summer of witnessing the reality of the climate crisis, I hit the River Clyde desperate to find something, whatever it was, that would silence the pessimistic inner that lives in the head of all who cover these topics.

While filming the next reports in Montana, I traveled through rivers too hot for fly fishing and watched the wildfires in the west turn the famous “Going to the Sun” road in Glacier National Park into “Going to the Smoke”. “.

I ventured into Greenland, where the ashes from those same fires darken the ice sheet and hasten its demise. We float alongside chunks of what specialists call “Jesus ice,” formed by snow that fell 2,000 years ago but is now melting thanks to 150 years of burning fossil fuels.

And in Charleston, South Carolina, I learned that the city and the Army Corps of Engineers are planning a $ 1 billion sea wall to protect the historic resort town from all that melting ice, and that the Affordable homeowners are raising their 200-year-old mansions to accommodate the shocking increase in flooding on sunny days.

I remember these examples in Glasgow, watching the thousands of people queuing every morning, some adapting their African dashikis or their Amazonian headdresses with scarves and gloves against the Scottish cold, and it comforts me to imagine that humanity is able to cooperate well. scientifically funded to save lives.

But then I check Twitter and see that West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin He backs up in his silver Maserati to a youth blockade in Washington, all screaming maddened by their refusal to support hard-hitting climate legislation. The continuation of the catastrophe leads us to realize that even the most miraculous technological advances require the acceptance of people who they’d rather punch a flight attendant rather than putting on a mask.

A The Washington Post investigation found that many countries are underestimating their levels of global warming pollution, while a review of the COP26 list shows that the largest contingent in the morning summit ranks represent fossil fuel companies, including those accused of hiding science and promoting disinformation in public discourse for decades.

So far, not a single COP26 pledge involves the closure of an oil well or active coal mine in this vital decade. Even the greenest and most progressive nations like Denmark won’t put an end date on fossil fuel production until the middle of the century, and all votes include the “net zero” warning. This is a huge loophole that allows countries to burn as much fossil fuel as they want, as long as they remove the same amount from the atmosphere. It’s a promise based on incredibly expensive technology that it has not yet been tested on a large scale.

“I am pleased to announce that I have decided to go to net zero on swearing and profanity”, Greta Thunberg tweeted, drilling a hole in the logic of net zero with his characteristic blunt style. “In the event that I say something inappropriate, I promise to make it up to you by saying something nice.”

“How do we bridge the gap between what is necessary for our survival and what seems politically possible at the moment?” asked the former president of the United States Barack Obama during his speech on Monday, in a day dedicated to Loss, Damage and Adaptation. “There are times when I doubt that humanity can agree before it is too late. And then the images of dystopia start to creep into my dreams. And yet every time I feel that discouragement, I remind myself that cynicism is the resource of cowards. “

It is impossible to come to Glasgow and not waver between hope and despair. Sometimes it seems like a worldwide convention of anonymous gamblers held in a casino.

But then you see the sustainable light in the eyes of a sincere soul as they describe all the things that deserve to be saved. You remember Mr. Rodger’s advice to “look for the helpers”, you stop dystopian fiction and read a poem like Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s favorite:

“Our task is not to fix the whole world at once, but to stretch ourselves, and order that part of the world that is within our reach.”

Then you have a coffee, nod your head to the swinging penguin, and keep reaching out.