Alternative Editorial: Let the Conference of the Parties (COP) Begin.
Activists from Ocean Rebellion (Andrew Milligan/PA)
As we begin COP 26 in Glasgow from 31st October – 12th November, let’s take a moment to ask: who are the parties to the UN’s long running Climate Change Conference? Over the next thirteen days we will be subject to the spectacle of governments coming from the four corners of the globe to build a shared agreement, but without four of the crucial actors. Between them China, Australia, Brazil and Russia are key to any successful outcome in which the global temperature rise could stay within 1.5 degrees – a limit beyond which, scientists agree, we go into irreversible decline as a human species.
Judging by the run-up media coverage Boris Johnson, as Prime Minister of the host country UK, will use their absence as a scapegoat for any failure to come. He is already calling out for the world to ‘take the situation more seriously’, positioning himself as the frustrated visionary, while he and his government are themselves falling criminally short of the targets set in previous COPs. Not only are we not radically changing, we are running faster in the wrong direction, with reversions to coal, flying and road building.
Rishi Sunak’s budget, delivered only last week, completely failed to put the crisis squarely at the centre of our national goals. History will show this was not a simple choice of emphasis but a crucial decision to keep us ignorant, entranced by the wrong story of what progress means. The chances they had to pull the whole country into a shared campaign – the kind that we idealize as a “war effort” - were rejected. A report that recommended we be discouraged by various means (including taxes) from eating meat – an easy win in the reduction of emissions from methane gas – was withdrawn and buried. The post-XR campaign group Insulate Britain’s demand that we put adequate money behind new ways of conserving and generating heat – which would have involved millions in upgrading their homes - were rejected by ministers.
Instead, the narrative focused on giving the people who voted for them (especially the Red Wall what they want. ‘Big spending’ made the headlines, suggesting this government could steal the clothes of previous Labour governments (Brownism) to keep voters on side. The emphasis post-Covid is on returning to normal. This forgets entirely that ‘normal’ is what caused the multiple crises of health (physical and mental), inequality and environmental catastrophe in the first place.
Where in this parade of ‘the parties’ are the people? According to a BBC World Service poll, 58% of citizens globally want their government to set properly ambitious targets at COP – that’s up from 43% in 2015. We have built up resources through our taxes, our labours, our care. Why don’t we have enough power and agency to grab that legacy, and put it into service for the planet and a future for our children? Now more than ever before, the climate crisis shows up the critical inadequacy of our democracy. A vote once every five years in a first past the post system has left us powerless, particularly with a complicit media system that takes the government’s lead on covering up the climate reality. No wonder Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain feel the need to put their very lives on the line to get attention – but that won’t be enough.
That only 58% of the people make this demand on their governments shows how too many people have not yet awakened to the imminent danger we are in. As if they can see a small blaze in the park over the road but have no idea of the parched conditions we are in -which might bring it straight to their door in minutes. If the demand was at 70% or more, the government would surely respond, if only in the interest of votes. But till now, this gradually growing climate anger has no effective incubator or media platform. One that might give you not only news of the solutions that are already available but lead you effectively to the people, tools and immediate actions you can take together, enabling traction in the place where you live.
Instead, too many are in a trance-state. Some still cling on to the American Dream – shared throughout the world – that we are all in this together and truth will prevail. Others who have been calling out that dream for a while – those active in Black Lives Matter, decolonisers, feminists – are often in tharn, caught in the headlights of approaching catastrophe, seeing no alternative. An alarming number of blogs recently expressed their conviction that, with a likely victory for Trump in the next election, democracy is over.
Hundreds joined a parade through Glasgow city centre (Image: Wattie Cheung)
But this is the same mind-set that gives all our power away to the very elites we decry. Even as we watch their betrayal of our future, we buy into their story of power. Is it really true that we can do nothing ourselves to make a difference? Even if we cannot be sure that we will succeed, isn’t it worth just constantly challenging, given the certainty of failure if we give into our fears? Shouldn’t we “dare to believe” simply to experience the joy we get from joining together with purpose and passion, at a moment where the meaning of events cannot be fathomed?
For those who don’t have enough people to work with on a daily basis, it is very hard to apply themselves practically to climate solutions. For those of us who do everything we can but rarely see a strong representation of our achievements in the public sphere or mainstream media, it’s a struggle. This task, to face the darkness head on and be the generator of the light for others is difficult.
Which is maybe why the leading integral thinker Terry Patten, in the months leading up to his recent passing, invited us all to think of climate crisis as a spiritual practice. Just as he faced death but brought extraordinary light to others in the process, Terry invited us all to use the possible extinction of humanity as the cause of our falling back in love with the planet, indeed with life itself. Not to focus on government or business to define what happens next, but to reignite our own response-ability and that of others’.
From there we can act in new ways – building citizen action networks of all kinds, creating the architecture for new forms of cosmolocal governance and contributing actively to a media that is committed to the self-organising and common ownership of the people. This is the demos itself, reinventing democracy in order to show the current regimes that something better is now needed and possible.
To many this will sound utopian, largely because they know that collaboration between people at this point is very hard to achieve. We are living in the daily reality of polarisation, scarcity of resources and lack of time. Collaboration is less an act of generosity, more a feat of engineering! But as Karen Downes, Co-founder of FemmeQ recently distinguished, if we begin to think more about co-operation and alignment, not getting in each other’s way as we move, each idiosyncratically moving towards the same goal, it sounds more feasible. And reading news about others succeeding, makes a great difference to those considering stepping into action.
Either way, let’s take it from Confucius: those who say something is not possible should get out of the way of those doing it.
Daily COP Coverage on Humanity Rising including DAY 7, AUK on Citizens Action