Climate: the COP Summits Are Valuable Indeed!

Since the Paris-based COP21 summit in 2015, whose advances met with (near-)unanimous praise, ensuing COP summits have generated a great deal of disappointment and criticism. But the COP summits are not just about the commitments, seldom honored, made by the States. Such is the view taken by the broad-based Sciences Po delegation that took part in COP26. For the article which follows, we sat down with Arnault Barichella, Phd candidate at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics, Ellen Ledger, master's student at the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA), and Carola Kloeck, researcher at the Center for International Studies (CERI) specializing in global warming adaptation policies.

What are the objectives of the COP summits?

Carola Kloeck: The Conference of Parties (COP) climate summits are the result of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), adopted in 1994. By signing the convention, States committed themselves to action preventing concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gases from exceeding humanity-threatening levels. This marked a major stride forward, especially since much less was known at the time, despite the fact that the scientists did possess alarming data. Now that this threshold has been surpassed, the COPs must shift gears towards policies of adaptation and dealing with the losses and damage already sustained.

How was the past year's COP26 meeting in Glasgow different from previous editions?

Carola Kloeck: COP26 was hotly anticipated, as no summit had been able to go forward in 2020. The conference drew 23,000 participants, but there should have been even more! Actually, some delegates, especially from small Pacific islands, failed to attend due to Covid-related travel restrictions. Two particularly divisive topics were at the center of discussions: the so-called Paris Agreement Rulebook and climate financing. On these two issues, COP26 set the stage for genuine compromises. The Paris Rulebook was issued with rules on the functioning of carbon markets and on the reporting of national-level actions. Concerning financing, the parties had pledged to help developing countries curb their emissions and adapt, but the funding allocated so far is insufficient and is mainly earmarked for mitigation, despite adaptation having become a major issue, especially for small islands. The Glasgow decisions promise a doubling of financial efforts for adaptation. Other agreements and pledges were announced: over a hundred countries committed to halting deforestation by 2030, with some countries slashing methane emissions by 30%.

How did Sciences Po manage to participate?

In addition to the negotiators of the Parties, the COPs gather a number of NGOs, media and scholars who apply to become recognized delegations. This year, we achieved just that: Sciences Po was granted recognition as an "observer organization" of the COPs! For researchers and students, COP summits constitute ideal venues for carrying out research and testing their hypotheses. For researchers, it is also a superb platform for showcasing their findings.

What did you learn by participating in COP26?

Carola Kloeck: Watching the negotiations up close is fascinating. It gives you a sense of how challenging it is for 200 or so countries with wide-ranging positions and priorities to reach an agreement. Ordinarily, observers - including researchers - can attend the negotiations, but this year, due to the pandemic, access to the rooms where the negotiations were held was limited. But even attending the roundtables - and all the side events! - enables you to do quite a bit, including interacting with delegates and chatting with negotiators and researchers. Then you keep in touch. This experience has fed into my research and lectures, such as the course I teach on international environmental policy.

Ellen Ledger: As part of my Master's in International Development at PSIA, I am writing a dissertation on Australia’s development and climate finance policies for Small Island Developing States in the Pacific. The ability to participate in the COP afforded to me by my thesis supervisor Carola Kloeck was a golden opportunity to do some field research! In particular, my research on public climate finance has spurred my interest in linkages between the COP policy framework and the international development finance system - two systems which with plenty of parallels but also misalignments, such as developed countries' broken promise to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance to developing countries. So I went with interest, but also skepticism.

Regarding the negatives, I encountered what you might expect in terms of inequalities and greenwashing. For example, the Australian pavilion featured a gas company; meanwhile several Pacific islands didn't even get the chance to send representatives directly from their countries (some were represented by foreign mission staff). I also witnessed the failure of States to establish a "Loss and Damage" (L&D) fund, called for by many developing countries. It must be said that the notion of compensatory justice is a far cry from gaining legitimacy within the international climate "regime,” despite strong internal and external pressure for its acceptance.

On the positive side, I met a lot of people who are passionate about the environment and discovered a wealth of new ideas for development in a dangerous climate change context. I was able to speak with professionals working on climate change issues in the Pacific Islands about adaptation programs, climate finance and advocacy. These exchanges were highly enriching, helping me to understand the manner in which discussions at the COP get translated into actionable programs. For example, there was a focus on the paucity of climate data in the Pacific Islands, where knowledge gaps can stand in the way of meaningful adaptation. Many discussions also focused on improving States’ access to climate finance. Multilateral funds such as the Green Climate Fund, for instance, could be leveraged to help democratize the way funding is distributed.

Arnault Barichella: I am writing a thesis on the role of sub-national actors in the fight against global warming, particularly that of cities. Since COP21, the role played by these actors in the UNFCCC has gained increasing recognition. In particular, organizations such as the Global Climate Action Portal, the central platform of the United Nations for non-state actors, and the US Climate Action Center (for American non-state actors) have been created and hosted pavilions which I had a chance to visit.

A portion of my doctoral research is devoted to the study of their contributions through a predominantly qualitative approach. My attendance at COP26 gave me the opportunity to sit in on a number of meetings and conferences and to interview officials in charge of these policies, supplementing the sixty or so interviews I have conducted over the past few years. In particular, I had the opportunity to engage with diplomats, representatives of different cities and regions throughout the world, as well as civil society and private sector actors.

The events of COP26 corroborated the findings discussed in my dissertation in terms of how cities and sub-national actors can provide critical support to governments in implementing "nationally determined contributions" (NDCs). An important chapter in my thesis examines these different frameworks' fitness for purpose; in it, I highlight several flaws with the existing mechanisms for engaging sub-state actors in the UNFCCC process. As a remedial measure, COP26 has undertaken to reinforce the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action.

The Sciences Po Editorial Team

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