At the COP26 in Glasgow, the North and the South back to back

• The COP26, an international conference organized each year by the United Nations, will open Sunday in Glasgow and will take place until 12 November.

• Unequal access to vaccines, to tests, but also uncertainties about the duration of quarantine ... Many delegations and representatives of civil society from southern countries are struggling to get to Glasgow.

  Or even gave it up.

• Defections which affect the very legitimacy of a COP and which further aggravate the divide between the countries of the South and the countries of the North.

  Fracture which is already usually very strong on climate issues.

Will the small island states of the Pacific, on the front lines of climate change, succeed in making their voices heard at COP26 in Glasgow? Thirteen of them have confirmed that they will send members of the government or other politicians to Scotland, the

said last Wednesday 

. But seven others, or a third of the total, threw in the towel in the face of difficulties caused by travel restrictions linked to Covid-19. They will be content to send members from their offices in New York or Brussels. No one, as assured for his country Ralph Regenvanu, MP for Vanutu, in the columns of the British daily.

These defections confirm the fear of NGOs that this COP26 does not offer fair conditions for participation and inclusiveness between the countries of the South and the North.

To the point that the Climate Action Network had asked for it to be postponed on September 7.

This network of 1,500 NGOs pointed out unequal access to vaccines and tests for delegations, uncertainties about quarantine conditions, but also the exorbitant cost of housing in Glasgow * ...

Even with a red list reduced to seven countries

This postponement was refused by the British presidency of the COP26, which nevertheless announced in the wake of the measures to encourage the arrival of representatives from the countries of the South. By promising free vaccines to delegates who request it, or by gradually reducing the "red list" of the circulation of Covid-19. This obliges nationals of the countries listed therein, to enter Great Britain, to isolate themselves for ten days if they are not fully vaccinated and five days if they are. Of 67 countries at the start of September - including a plethora of African states - this list has only seven today.

"These measures came too late to allow a good number of delegations and observers from civil society to organize themselves," regrets Aurore Mathieu, international policy manager at the Climate Action Network (RAC). And there are still these seven countries "in red", all in Central America and South America ** ”. “They are also on the front line in the face of climate change,” adds Myrto Tilianaki, CCFD-Terre Solidaire advocacy officer For whom this red list is not the only problem anyway. "Many countries of the South are also seeking to protect themselves from Covid-19 from which they have managed to escape so far, and impose quarantines on their delegations and NGOs who go to COP26 on their return", she explains. . Up to one month in total for Marshall Islands nationals,writes the

.

"To date, at least half of the African delegates are not sure of being able to go to Scotland"

stressed for his part the Gabonese Tanguy Gahouma-Bekale, who chairs the group of negotiators of the continent, in the columns of the

October 11.

An imbalance that touches the very essence of COPs?

Not nothing. Because this imbalance of representativeness touches the very essence of a COP. “Even if we talk about the climate everywhere, these COPs still play a capital role as a high-level political convening body,” explains Lola Vallejo, director of the climate program of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (Iddri) . They are the guarantee that there will be at least one thematic focus on climate within the year, in the international agenda, and that participation will be inclusive. "Not only are the least developed countries around the negotiating table," but they have a particular moral authority there, because they are the most impacted by climate change while they contribute the least ", continues Lola. Vallejo. Inclusiveness at the service of ambition? “At the COP21 in Paris,in 2015, the Pacific island states played a decisive role in adopting the objective of limiting global warming to 1.5 ° C ”, illustrates in any case Myrto Tilianaki.

This diminished presence of Southern countries in Glasgow is also likely to further aggravate the particular context in which this COP26 opens.

“That of a great lack of confidence of the countries of the South with regard to those of the North on the issues of solidarity, analyzes Sébastien Treyer, executive director of IDDRI.

And more broadly the most vulnerable countries and the poorest vis-à-vis industrialized countries, including emerging countries [including China].

"

The broken $ 100 billion promise

The grabbing of Covid-19 vaccines by rich countries has only exacerbated the North-South divide, already very strong on climate issues. In the crosshairs? The 100 billion dollars that the countries of the North had pledged, at the COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, to mobilize each year to help those of the South to cope with climate change, and about which we should again speak a lot in Glasgow. “To date, the promise has not been kept, points out Aurore Mathieu. In 2019, this aid, all combined, reached 79 billion, and we know that we will not be at 100 billion in 2021. "

Beyond the amounts, the international political leader of the RAC underlines the lack of quality of this aid.

“A large proportion is distributed in the form of loans [70% according to an OECD report published in mid-September] to countries which are already facing strong growth in their debts,” she begins.

A majority also goes to GHG reduction projects and much less to adaptation projects to the already real impacts of climate change, when the Paris climate agreement requires a balance between the two.

"Aurore Mathieu sees in this a reluctance on the part of the rich and industrialized countries to take their responsibilities and show solidarity," which the countries of the South are not fooled by.

A divide that will weigh on the success of COP26

These tensions should reflect on other decisive points of the success or not of this COP26. One is to finally finalize the manual for the implementation of the Paris Agreement, several parts of which are still problematic. This is the case with article 6, which provides for a system for trading greenhouse gas emissions rights between states that emit too much and those that emit less. In short: this article aims to provide a regulatory framework for a future carbon market between States.

Myrto Tilianaki sees it as a typical example of the grabbing of rich countries from the negotiating agenda in the service of their interests.

“At the outset, this article speaks of international cooperation and not of carbon markets,” she insists.

Several countries in the South, including Bolivia, are asking that we dig other non-market mechanisms, which has not been done so far.

»Not sure they will be heard in Glasgow.

Even less, so if they present themselves in reduced numbers.

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* On the Airbnb site for example, there is not much less than 150 euros to eat.

** Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Peru, Venezuela.

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