COP26 Finishes - Or Should We Say "Phases Down"?

Thousands of exhausted policymakers, lobbyists, scientists and journalists, as well as Glasgow’s bar staff, taxi drivers and sex workers, all greeted the end of Cop26 with some relief, I suspect.

It ended with some progress in areas such as methane emissions and deforestation, but with at least equal amounts of disappointment, including the way a historic deal on coal production was watered down at the last minute. As The Times put it,

The president of Cop26 was reduced to tears on Saturday as he tried to explain the last-minute changes made to the deal, dubbed the Glasgow climate pact. India and China had pushed for the replacement of a pledge to “phase out” coal with one to “phase down” its use.

That tiny change in wording is significant, as it reduces the urgency with which countries are supposed to reduce coal use, which is probably the strongest driver of climate change.  “Phase-down” is pretty meaningless, and like many of the “agreements” from Cop26, it lacks firm targets, independent measures, structured delivery plans… all those factors we would look to see in a decent programme plan for any major initiative in our own organisation. 

We know that even a procurement systems implementation is unlikely to work without such  planning; it seems unlikely the world will implement de-carbonisation successfully on the back of a few vague statements of intent.

Journalist and campaigner George Monbiot described the climate summit as a  ”total fiasco”. He says we need a decision to leave all fossil fuels in the ground by 2030, but that was not even discussed – so we get “this pathetic limp rag of a document” as he graphically put it.

But eminent economist and policy expert Andrew Lilico comes at it from an interesting angle. On Twitter, he says, “Now that the latest "last chance to save the world from climate change" has failed, can we finally start admitting that the climate is going to change, like it or not, & focus our energies on working out the best strategy to adapt to that change? “

China, India and other fossil fuel producing countries are not going to agree to lose out by stopping coal or oil production, he says.  In fact, he says the Chinese accept the climate is going to change.  But “their strategy is to be as rich as possible when the change comes, cos a rich country will be more resilient & adaptable. Not a dumb strategy at all. What's ours?”

My view is that we over-estimate the power of governments. They can only move as fast as their citizens allow them to. Even in a non-democratic country like China, the rulers must consider the views of the public if they want to continue ruling. So India, Australia and China look at the UK, which chopped down most of its forests centuries ago, and dug up all its coal and oil in the last century, contributing to cumulative global warming. Those countries judge that the UK is hardly in a position to play the moral card, and their own people would rather have greater economic prosperity now and handle the risks of extreme climate change later.

Until that view from the electorate switches, I fear we will not see the massive changes wanted by some, which has implications for organisations and procurement professionals. Obviously as the author of “Procurement with Purpose”. I believe that we should be doing what we can to support reduction in emissions and so on, but we should also be pragmatic and accept that there is every chance we are going to get climate change that will bring new and bigger supply chain challenges.

So we need a dual strategy; working to support change in our supply chains to reduce emissions, but also taking those risk mitigation steps that will prove vital as we see more extreme weather events, more low-lying areas flooding or even disappearing, and so on.

To finish on a more positive note, there are many steps we could take as individuals and governments that will improve matters for the planet and its people. For instance, we could stop dredging the ocean floors, killing everything in the process, in order to make scallops cheaper on our gastropub menus.  (Did you know that the British fishing boat detained in France recently was a scallop-dredger? Sink it, I say!) 

We can take a more active approach to human rights in our supply chains – we could have pushed  back more about the World Cup going to Qatar, where thousands of migrant workers have died because of a disregard for health and safety approaches.

There are plenty of positive changes we can make that are much more achievable than stopping the Aussies or the Chinese digging up cheap coal. And at least the nations are talking, with China and the USA showing a more collaborative approach with their surprise Cop26 announcement than we have seen for years between the two global superpowers. That has to be good news for a number of reasons, not just climate.

I know it is hard not to fall into despair sometimes about the posturing and selfishness on display at Cop26, Biden’s motorcade and Johnson’s flight back to London for a party; but there are a few reasons to be cheerful too!