Glasgow ends in compromise disappointment and a little hope

The mood towards the end of the Glasgow climate talks wavered somewhere between resignation and misery.

For two weeks the COP president Alok Sharma had been calling on delegates to “arm themselves with the currency of compromise”.

As talks spilled a day into overtime, it was becoming clear who was going to have to do the compromising, and just how much currency they would be required to surrender.

For years at these talks, developing nations have been calling for a mechanism to be created for wealthy nations to pay for the loss and damage being caused by climate change in poorer ones.

The argument for this is one of justice, explains Mohamed Adow, director of the climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa. Rich nations caused the problem which is so far having a disproportionate impact in vulnerable island states and vast swathes of Africa.

The demand for loss and damage has been sidelined over the years, even by wealthy western nations that are progressive on other climate issues, such as the US, the UK and the EU. They fear that conceding on the issue will lead to vast long-term costs, and their key interest is in mitigation to stave off the terrible impacts of climate change they can see so rapidly approaching.

But in Glasgow blocs of nations stood by the demand for loss and damage finance and forced the talks into overtime in an effort to achieve it.

Finally on Saturday in the mid-afternoon, the developing nations folded. They could not afford to threaten the Glasgow Pact and its mechanisms for speeding up emissions reductions. The poor conceded to the rich.

In a meeting called to update the presidency on their positions, they rose to offer their reluctant support.

The Maldives environment minister Shauna Aminath shed light on the toll of the compromise.

“Please do us the courtesy of acknowledging that this does not bring hope to our hearts, but serves as another conversation in which we put our homes on the line while those who have other options decide how quickly they want to act to save those who don’t,” she said.

Aminath Shauna, Maldives’ Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Technology, told the delegates: “Please do us the courtesy to acknowledge that it does not bring hope to our hearts.”Credit:AP

For a time it seemed as though the imperfect deal was done, until India, backed by China, intervened to water down language calling for coal to be phased out, insisting instead that it be changed to “phased down.”

This change in language means there is no deadline to end coal power.

This was a bitter disappointment to those states that had just ceded so much.

“This commitment on coal had been a bright spot in this package,” said Marshall Islands climate envoy Tina Stege.

“It was one of the things we were hoping to carry out of here and back home with pride. And it hurts deeply to see that bright spot dimmed.

“We accept this change with the greatest reluctance. We do so only â€" and I want to stress, only â€" because there are critical elements of this package that people in my country need as a lifeline for their future.”

The European Union’s vice president Frans Timmermans was equally scathing.

“It is no secret to this gathering that the European Union would have wanted to go even further than the initial text in the cover agreement on coal,” he said.

European Commissioner for European Green Deal Frans Timmermans.Credit:AP

“This is a consequence of our own painful experience with coal. We all know that European wealth was built on coal. And if we don’t get rid of coal, European death will also be built on coal.

“We know full well, that coal has no future and this is what we’re working on with our own plans to put an end to coal in Europe in the foreseeable future.”

Despite the compromises and the disappointments, most climate observers did not view the COP as a failure.

Richie Merzian, energy and climate program director at the Australia Institute and a former climate negotiator said even the battered language on coal is significant.

“After 15 years in the process, it’s exciting to see fossil fuels directly targeted, with significant alliances against coal, oil and gas launched on the margins of COP and language on phasing out traditional coal power debated to the final hours and even supported by Australia,” he says. “Progress has been made, hopes have remained and the process lurches forward to 2022.”

Alden Meyer, a veteran of every COP ever held and senior associate with the think tank e3g said the main goal of the meeting was always a tough ask.

“1.5 is alive, but it is on life support in the ICU.”

But he says that the mechanisms in the agreement to have governments review and improve their reduction goals and strategies annually, and to have their progress monitored by the UN, could have a significant impact on emissions, especially when combined with the COP side-deals many nations signed to reduce methane emissions and abandoned fossil fuels.

The structure for rapid emissions reductions is there, if nations chose to use it.

“No one is going to make them do it. No one is going to slap sanctions on them or send in the sixth fleet, it is up to them.”

Despite the fact that there is no enforcement mechanism, the agreement carries weight, says Meyer.

This is why COPs are so bitterly contested, and why so many terrible compromises are extracted.

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Nick O'Malley is National Environment and Climate Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is also a senior writer and a former US correspondent.Connect via email.

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