What Happened, and What's Next? COP26 Attendees Reflect on their Experiences, Learnings, and Hopes

COP26 Glasgow, the annual event where world leaders and activists meet to set new national targets for emissions reduction, came to a dramatic close on November 13, 2021. We interviewed three COP26 attendees with close ties to ICP to get their opinions on the negotiations, decisions made, and their personal experiences at COP26. 

Amanda Ellis

ICP board member Amanda Ellis leads global partnerships for the ASU Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and serves as Executive Director for Hawaiʻi and Asia-Pacific for the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation. Until March 2016 Ms. Ellis served as New Zealand’s Head of Mission and Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to Francophone Africa. She has served as Deputy Secretary in the New Zealand Foreign Ministry and Head of the NZ Aid Programme, Lead Specialist in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Group at the World Bank Group, founded the International Finance Corporation’s global gender program, and served in senior executive roles at Westpac Banking Corporation in Australia, including as Head of Women’s Markets and National Manager Women in Business.

1. What do you see as some of the biggest wins and losses of the COP26 climate negotiations process?

There were some big early wins within the first few days, like the Methane Pledge (cutting methane by 30% below 2020 levels by 2030) and the Deforestation Pledge (ending deforestation by 2030). The reason Glasgow was expected to be so significant is that the Paris Agreement foreshadowed updated country commitments - Nationally Determined Contributions – to radically reduce emissions so as to not surpass 1.5 degrees C. In the end we came out at around 2.4 degrees - rather than the 2.7 predicted before the Summit, so some small progress.

Outside the formal negotiating process, some big wins for me were the active and vocal presence of youth activists, and practical engagement from the business community. Youth was a high point of hope. It was great to see youth stepping up and reminding the older generation of their moral duty to make decisions that will not negatively impact their futures and livelihoods. On the Youth and Public Empowerment Day of COP26, tens of thousands of youth activists marched in protest. Furthermore, while there was some obvious greenwashing, there were many companies present committed to educating and reaching net zero. For example, Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero members are responsible for $130 trillion of assets - the majority of the global economy. Accountability was strengthened by the world’s leading platform for business commitments on decarbonization, the Science-Based Targets Initiative and the creation of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) to establish a baseline for sustainability disclosures. 

For me, governance was really the negative of this COP. I think the biggest disappointment was the final outcome, despite warnings of a “code red for humanity”. I was very disappointed in the fact that the single largest grouping was fossil fuel lobbyists at the same time when the heads of state from some of the world’s major emitters (notably China, Russia and Brazil) were absent. This conference was also criticized for lack of opportunity for meaningful engagement by developing countries. While the COVID-19 pandemic prevented many developing country representatives from physically being in Glasgow, some negotiators also expressed dismay at the condescending way in which some developed nation representatives treated counterparts from developing countries. 

2. The COP26 Glasgow Climate Pact was recently released, expressing the commitments of COP parties - what are some areas that you’d like to flag as important? What areas should future negotiations work to strengthen?

Although it is a plus that this was the first UNFCCC agreement to explicitly address fossil fuels which are obviously the major contributor to climate change, it was very disappointing to read the final text’s watered-down language. Early drafts referenced the need to  “phase out coal and fossil fuel subsidies”, but last minute interventions resulted in the final text referring to “phasing down unabated coal and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”. There were also no explicit mentions of loss and damage provisions for developing countries harmed by global emissions, 80% of which have historically been caused by developed nations. 

For me, fossil fuel subsidies are a huge issue that must be addressed head on in future negotiations. As an economist, it makes no sense to me that there continue to be massive fossil fuel subsidies propping up this destructive industry; in 2020, the IMF estimated there was $5.9 trillion in fossil fuel subsidies taking into account externalities. There are so many positive opportunities with new technologies that will not be realized until we get rid of these distorting subsidies, which should go towards financing the green transition. Al Gore gave a great presentation emphasizing fuel subsidies are 42 times the subsidies for new, green technologies, so eliminating fossil fuel subsidies should definitely be a point of focus for future commitments. 

3. There were many strong commitments made by nations at COP26 - how effective do you think that the implementation of these goals will be in the long-term?

An absolutely central question! While 197 countries agreed on the Glasgow Climate Pact, with promises to return to COP27 in 2022 with greater ambition on their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the key issue for me is monitoring and measuring progress - NDCs are determined by individual nations, and at the moment, they are tracked through self-reporting. I would love to see a good globally agreed monitoring mechanism to keep countries on track - if countries are making commitments, they should be transparent and monitored, and there should be pressure from others to ensure that countries live up to their pledges. The good news is that independent initiatives like ClimateTrace are stepping up monitoring. 

At COP26, there were important calls for climate to be included as part of the educational curriculum. The results of a UNESCO study of 100 countries found that less than half have climate education. I would like to see a commitment across the board for climate education to be included in curriculum right down from universities through elementary schools. For me this is an absolutely critical issue as research shows those who are educated about climate change are three times as likely to take action.

 Finally - and this is very positive - it is clear that climate change is now considered a whole of government issue. Many governments sent representation from a range of Ministries to Glasgow. Time correspondent Justin Worland noted the shift from climate being a niche issue dealt with by a relatively small agency in most governments to one being considered by top-ranking officials across government. That matters, and will help shape future implementation.

4. COP26 produced some outcomes targeting gender equality as a part of climate justice - for example, the UK has pledged ￡165 million to tackle climate change while addressing gender inequality. What is needed from Annex 1 countries to fully address the gender disparities that are exacerbated by climate change?

80% of the victims of the climate crisis are women and children, yet women are significantly underrepresented in positions of power and largely absent from climate negotiations. Women are more likely to be negatively impacted by climate disasters, but are the least likely to have a seat at the table. The action coalition She Changes Climate was created to combat this and engaged very proactively with the UK government. This is important not just for gender balance and the diversity dividend: we know from early research that where there are more women in positions of legislative power and business decision making, there is a higher likelihood of action on climate and sustainability being on the agenda. So gender-balanced representation is critical.

There is also the umbrella issue of gender equality, which governments have been pledging to address for many decades through numerous agreements like the 1947 Universal Declaration on Human Rights and Millennium Development Goal 3. Yet not a single country in the world has achieved full gender equality in practice. This is a huge contextual piece - why are we still operating in a framework of significant disparity? Internationally, the estimates are that less than 2% of development dollars go to climate issues, and gender issues also receive very little financing. I think it’s fantastic that the UK has pledged this money as it flags the importance of this intersection, but it is really not enough. We often think just about women as victims, but women as decision makers, innovators and “solutionaries” have so much to offer. Check out the WE Empower UN SDG Challenge platform which showcases women entrepreneurs addressing SDG13 such as Food Rescue Hero feeding those in need at the same time as preventing food waste, and Cloud to Street which uses AI and big data to predict flooding. Climate justice and gender equality are absolutely central to effectively addressing the climate crisis.

Elsa Barron

Elsa Barron is a youth climate activist, journalist, researcher, and community organizer specializing in environmental peacebuilding and security. She is also a former ICP Intern. Elsa is a recent graduate of Notre Dame University where she studied biological sciences and peace studies, and is a Fulbright Scholarship Awardee. She is starting a new position as a program assistant at the Center for Climate and Security in Washington D.C..  She is the host of the environmental peacebuilding podcast, Olive Shoot.

1.What do you see as some of the biggest “wins” in the COP26 climate negotiations process?

I think the activist community in general left COP feeling pretty disappointed - there was lots of grieving, anger and disappointment, but there were definitely some big wins. An unconventional one is the moment when Alok Sharma (the COP President) teared up at the conclusion of the negotiations. This was one of the biggest wins in my opinion because it felt as if  the activist community had cracked a tiny hole into what is often a closed-off high-level decision-making space. To see the leader of this process show emotion that reflects the anger and grief of youth, Indigenous communities, and small island states felt like we had a real impact in the space. I also think the show of emotion in an official diplomatic space is something very honest and vulnerable, and resonates with the very nature of the climate crisis, but isn't on display in those rooms. It was definitely one of the most real, reflective parts of the negotiations process.

2. How do you think that grassroots climate leadership, for example, the COP26 coalition, can complement high-level climate leadership like COP26?

The official diplomatic space feels very different from the space created by the COP26 coalition. I went to a Climate Fringe Cafe event, which was very different from events that took place in the Blue Zone. It was also at the Fringe Cafe that I best understood what was happening in the COP negotiations, even though I had been in the official “Blue Zone” all day. At the Cafe, someone came and explained to us, point by point, what was being decided, what the key issues were, and what different countries' perspectives were, which was so helpful. Inside the conference there was an assumption that everyone already understood what was being discussed, so there were no explanations of terminology used, etc., which made it much less accessible for non-experts to understand the scope of negotiations. It felt like you needed to be an expert to be involved inside the COP grounds, whereas in the COP26 Coalition spaces, there was a lot of openness, discussion, relationship-building, and creativity, which are all really critical to creating an open and connected negotiations space.

3. Climate-induced migration is one of the largest threats caused by the climate crisis. Do you think COP26 negotiations successfully captured the nature of this issue and proposed viable solutions?

In one word: no. The negotiations failed to capture the nature of this issue or propose viable solutions. The targets reached at COP26, while a step in the right direction, will still lead us towards 2.4 degrees of warming, a catastrophic increase that will impact small island communities the most. At the end of the negotiations, it was the leaders of these states who stood up to demand more because their entire nations and lives were on the line, with little response from the rest of the international community. This will have drastic effects on climate migration in all sorts of areas that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. There are no agreed upon mechanisms that can facilitate peaceful migration, and they are typically not discussed at these high levels. I think we need to think about deep resilience; in places where adaptation and mitigation are not possible, thinking about mechanisms that can provide safe and peaceful passage for communities and can preserve cultural traditions and community relationships. Right now, this type of thinking is failing to translate into decision and policy-making. 

4. Is there a story or example where you saw peace building in action at COP26?

I was honoured to be able to sit in on a series of Indigneous and traditional knowledge-holders sharing their expertise around their homelands, their concerns about climate change, and their desires for the future. It was incredible to see a room filled with Indigenous peoples from across the world sharing their unique relationship and knowledge with the specific land that they have stewarded for generations, and also to see the degree to which communities shared a similar connection with land, and also with oppression. One of the strongest components of positive peace is strong community relationships; these relationships are often rooted in a local place, yet they can reach further. To witness relationship-building and knowledge-sharing happen between communities from across the world in this session was a strong example of building positive peace at a global level. It also contrasts colonial efforts that often intend to cut off communities, relationships, languages, and traditions - at COP26, this highlighted efforts to build connections, even where they had not existed before.

5. Are there any other COP26 highlights that you have?

The People’s Plenary was a high-level session that took place in the Blue Zone - it was led not by the negotiators or decision makers, but by civil society representatives at COP26. So many different groups from the Indigenous people’s constituency to labor union representatives shared their perspectives, and it ended in a walk-out from the COP zone, carrying strands of red ribbon to represent the red lines that had already been crossed in the negotiations, and the red lines that we would continue to stand for. We marched through the Blue Zone where negotiations were happening, and met at the large security fences of the COP grounds where we joined with another protest. It really demonstrated the unity of civil society, both those who had official badges to attend the COP, and those outside of it who were still doing the incredibly important work of coalition building, educating, and holding pressure on negotiators. This really demonstrated unity and commitment to climate justice, an essential tenet of peacebuilding, and also underscored the power of our work to create a viable future.

Naima Te Maile

Naima Te Maile is a second-year Environmental law student at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, and a former ICP Intern. At COP26, she presented on two panels, the first was in the Alliance of Small Island States/Climate Central Pavilion and the second was in the Climate Vulnerable Forum Pavilion on her experience as a woman/environmental law student of Tuvaluan descent and as a founding member of Our Drowning Voices.

1.What were your goals in attending COP26?

 My goal in attending the COP was to connect with and learn from the precious number of Pacific Island delegations, especially Tuvalu, that were intent on spreading a message of urgency about the climate crisis. Most of the programs I attended were centered on amplifying indigenous voices and underlined the need for greater accessibility to spaces like the COP, and greater representation and platforms for indigenous peoples’ voices to be heard. 

2. Were there any moments at COP26 that really moved you?

​​I had the pleasure of meeting so many incredible thought-leaders and change-makers at the COP26 – environmental activists, lawyers, scientists, UN ambassadors, and more. It was my personal mission to find someone from the Tuvalu delegation and ask them a few questions about what they felt was going well or lacking at the COP. Unexpectedly, I found my Tuvaluan relatives on the same bus I was taking home: Minister Seve Paeniu and his wife, Malama Paeniu. I was invited to dinner with the two of them, along with Kato Ewekia, the only youth who was able to attend the COP from Tuvalu. I asked Mr. Seve many questions, but his responses will always stay with me. I asked whether he agreed with the “drowning island” rhetoric that was often employed in conversations about Tuvalu (and other Small Island States’) plight against the climate crisis. He said he did, as he was beginning to see it on a regular basis at his home in Funafuti, the capital of Tuvalu. He told me about how, during the storm season, he saw tides build on one side of the island and crash down upon the other – a sight he and other Tuvaluans had never beheld in his entire life. I also told him about my reasons for attending law school: that they are a direct result of my family’s experience as Tuvaluan and Marshallese citizens – many of whom have been immediately impacted by climate change and rising sea-levels and have migrated from their homelands, unable to return for fear of impending climate threats and loss of both inhabitable and agricultural land. Through this and other similarly impactful moments, I left Glasgow with  a deeper understanding of the issues that Tuvalu and other Small Island States were facing, and a better sense of how I could use my legal education to help.

3. What are you bringing back to your community from COP26?

A recurring question at the COP26 was how more Indigenous youth could engage in future COPs, and have a more active role in decision-making - the experience really solidified the fact that there is no climate justice if there is no justice for Indigenous peoples. Something else that really resonated with me were the many calls for more communication and collaboration between the multi-disciplinary fields of environmental law and climate science, and how a science-informed approach is crucial to tackling these issues.

4. What are your general reflections on COP26?

Attending the COP26 as a UH Environmental Law Program delegate helped me to really assess how engaged Hawai’i is in the climate change problem – how much the Hawai’i community (and the University of Hawai’i community) was meaningfully contributing to solutions and research, and “showing up.” It was so crucial that the University of Hawai’i had a delegation at COP26, and I am grateful to have attended as a delegate and student. Hawai’i is in a unique position to influence the United States by calling for more federally-enforced environmental protection, and support its Pacific neighbors who, like Hawai’i, are facing the effects of climate change first and worst. By attending COP26, I was really able to understand the role of my community, and my own role, in combating this crisis.
Secondly, I left Scotland feeling grateful for the opportunity to be in attendance, but also somewhat disillusioned with the idea of a high-level conference being the most efficient or “end-all-be-all” for finding climate change solutions. As climate researcher,Niklas Hoehne said, “COP26 has closed the gap [by producing an agreement], but it has not solved the problem.”