Climate summit in Glasgow: Creative arithmetic should come to an end

With some delay, a huge police march in the city and long queues in front of the conference center, the climate summit in Glasgow, postponed by a year due to Corona, began on Monday afternoon.

More than a hundred and twenty heads of state or government had traveled to the Scottish capital.

Even before the first speech was given, there was criticism of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in view of the organizational chaos.

For many participants in the UN Conference of the Parties, this brought back memories of the climate conference in Copenhagen eleven years ago, which was regarded as a diplomatic failure.

Joachim Müller-Jung

Editor in the features section, responsible for the “Nature and Science” section.

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Apparently, the organizers expected violent protests at the start of the two-week negotiations. Glasgow was cordoned off in large parts of the city center. On the other hand, the accredited conference participants who, together with the non-governmental organizations who had traveled, form a summit people of an estimated twenty-five thousand had not been planned at all. Thousands of delegates had to queue in front of the gates for the first few hours in windy and anything but pleasant autumn weather - not because of the strict Corona rules, but because of the ID checks at the apparently far too few entrance gates. Every participant had to identify himself with the new negative test at the barriers before the actual identity check at the crossing into the “blue zone”.

"The longer we wait, the more expensive this conversion will be"

In the conference center it quickly became clear that the British Prime Minister had not exaggerated the concerns he had expressed a few days ago about a possible failure of the climate negotiations.

Already after the G-20 summit in Rome last weekend, expectations among summit participants and observers had already been lowered.

In the opening speeches it became clear what the hour had struck for international politics.

“No more blah-blah-blah”, demanded Boris Johnson, “here in Glasgow is the moment to act.”

Johnson called for more ambition especially when it comes to phasing out coal burning. By 2030, all rich countries could forego the use of coal as an energy source, and by 2040 this should be possible worldwide. Johnson also put pressure on the ban on internal combustion engines. In the UK, fossil fuel-dependent cars would no longer be sold by 2030. "The longer we wait, the more expensive this conversion will be," said Johnson. Again and again he referred to the responsibility of the summit participants towards the younger generation. Half of the world's population is now under thirty years old. "If we fail, they will not forgive us completely, and rightly so."

The temperature target agreed in the Paris Climate Agreement was specified in the opening speeches of the heads of state: The goal of limiting global warming of the atmosphere to “below two degrees and, if possible, to 1.5 degrees” was hardly mentioned.

In the meantime it seems clear: The target mark should be 1.5 degrees of maximum warming.

For the first time, the Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has even brought a limit “below 1.5 degrees” into play.

In Glasgow, the next two weeks will be, as UN Secretary General António Guterres said, "to keep the 1.5-degree target alive".

He highlighted the importance of acting quickly, not just long-term goals.

Willingness to pay too little

The absence of several heads of government from high-emission countries such as China, Russia and Turkey and the announcement by the Chinese head of state Xi Jinping are seen as a signal to forego rapid, new climate protection measures. Guterres announced that it would set up a group of experts to make the national climate targets of the nearly two hundred signatory states comparable and to check whether they actually meet the commitments made in the Paris Treaty. In future, states should adjust their goals every five years, rather than every year, Guterres demanded. The poor comparability - the "creative fine calculation" - of the climate promises had been criticized again and again.

The Glasgow negotiations are likely to be less focused on temperature targets than on finances. Guterres praised Germany and Canada in this regard. Their pledges to increase funds for climate adaptation projects in poor countries would have to be followed by others. However, it is still not enough to collect the 100 billion dollars each year that the less affluent states were promised in Paris as financial aid for their climate protection measures. Given the current rate of willingness to pay on the part of donor countries, this is not expected until 2023 at the earliest. The Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Anor Mottley, made it clear in an emotional speech what the "broken promises of the G20 countries" mean: another confrontation between the countries of the south and the rich countries in the north,who are currently responsible for eighty percent of global emissions and are also responsible for historical climate debt.

The American President Joe Biden reported his country, which is considered to be the second largest emitter of climate-damaging gases, back in the climate diplomacy - but without shining with an ambitious speech.

The current high energy prices are one more reason to rely on clean and diversified energy sources.

"Glasgow must be the start of a decade in which efforts must be increased and action must be taken." Countries affected by rainforest deforestation, for example, must be more than helped.