COP26: The diplomatic stakes are high for Global Britain

“Global Britain” is about to be centre stage. Years of diplomatic activity have been spent to achieve a successful COP26. Reputations are at stake.

The summit’s name doesn’t help – COP? It stands for “Conference of the Parties”, which is duller than dull and lends itself to a variety of awful puns and therefore headlines. COP Out! Boris COPS it! Bad COP! are waiting in the presses in the event the summit’s considered a failure, and without a Chinese change of emissions, that may happen.

Several notches down in importance, an array of banana skins to avoid are lying in wait. With 30,000 attendees to feed, ferry about, and keep safe in Glasgow, the UK’s ability to pull off a major world conference is being tested. Already there are grumblings about the lack of accommodation and the massively inflated prices people are being charged. Ordinary hotel rooms, 40 miles away in Edinburgh, are going for £3,000 a night. And 5,500 conference staff are being housed on two massive cruise ships docked on the River Clyde amid concerns there may be a Covid outbreak onboard.

Those issues are a matter of national logistics. Action on climate change, though, involves international diplomacy, and that usually involves competition, even when cooperation is required. The UN Secretary General says climate change equals “Code Red” for humanity and many countries have set out with good intentions on the road to Glasgow. However, most have fallen back into concentrating on their national – rather than humanity’s – interest, even though in this case they are the same thing.

When the COP talks began in 1992, they built in a problem. China, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and others were classified as developing countries. Because the developed countries had been responsible for most of the emissions to date, it was agreed they would make bigger cuts and help fund ways for others to reduce emissions. Almost 30 years on, China, India, and many more argue that they are still developing and therefore don’t need to take the sort of action required by the US, Germany, the UK, etc. That is despite China being the world’s worst polluter, with India in third place, Iran in seventh, and Saudi Arabia ninth. These countries are very different from those they remain bracketed with such as Burkina Faso or El Salvador.

India’s energy minister, Raj Kumar Singh, recently said that poorer nations need to continue using fossil fuels to raise standards of living. He singled out richer nations for criticism, saying there are “800 million people who don’t have access to electricity. You can’t say that they have to go to net zero, they have the right to develop, they want to build skyscrapers and have a higher standard of living”. 

India has announced a major increase in coal production as a part of a plan to boost to post-Covid economic recovery, as has China. It’s position on moral responsibility is shared by many developing nations which is why Prime Minister Johnson’s speech to the UN about humanity having to “grow up” was not well received in some quarters. One of the UK government’s slogans for COP 26 is “Consign coal to history”. It made it into the G7’s Final Communique at Cornwall this summer but was then undermined by the announcement of plans to open a new coal mine in Cumbria. That’s something Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison will keep in mind if pressed to end coal production, a move Australia is not prepared to make. It is also argued that the UK’s decision earlier this year to temporarily cut foreign aid undermines its moral stance in being a leader in the battle against climate change as some of the projects hit are connected to combatting the problem. 

These are among the barriers the UK’s diplomats have encountered as the “Sherpas” did the heavy lifting required to get a credible “Final Communique” next month. Alok Sharma, the COP President, has criss-crossed the world over the past year trying to ensure a successful summit. Others have been helping. US Climate Envoy John Kerry is reported to have spoken with his opposite number in China, Xie Zenhua, 18 times in the last 6 month alone. He’s hit a roadblock though. The era of strategic rivalry between the USA and China complicates the fight against climate change. Washington argues that climate change is a stand-alone issue. Beijing rejects this saying the subject cannot be separated from the two countries’ broader relationship. Essentially, China would like to be able to bring criticism of its treatment of the Uighurs and the issue of Taiwan into the negotiations which is a non-starter for the Americans.

President Xi will not be attending; he hasn’t left China since the pandemic began. Nor will several other leaders of major powers. More importantly China has not committed to an updated pledge on reductions in emissions and says it can only reach carbon neutral by 2060. That’s not Boris Johnson’s fault, but it does make it difficult to portray COP 26 as a triumph of British diplomacy. The target of keeping global temperatures within +1.5% of what they were prior to the industrial revolution is still going to be missed by a mile.

Promises will be made, flowery declarations declared, group photos of smiling heads of government taken. And then they’ll fly home. The experts will tell us what it all means, and the media will take a view. What most news outlets though will not do is report back in a few months’ time on what is being delivered. That’s the real test of whether Global Britain’s diplomacy paid off.