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From the outside—and sometimes from the inside also—annual U.N. climate conferences known as COPs can seem like a bunch of aimless talk. For more than three decades, the U.N. has held these conferences, and the world is still on track for catastrophic warming. And so as 20,000 people, including around 120 world leaders, gather in Glasgow this year for COP26, I thought I would answer a very simple question: why does COP matter?
The simple answer—as anyone following climate news likely knows—is that the world has warmed around 1.1°C since the Industrial Revolution, and we’re dangerously close to passing the 1.5°C threshold that scientists have warned will bring dire consequences. Because carbon stays in the atmosphere for decades, we need a dramatic shift in direction essentially immediately.
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But, of course, there’s more to the question than the science. Instead, it seems to me, the criticism centers on whether global climate talks are really an effective method of pushing for change and, ultimately, reducing emissions. COP detractors argue that a bunch of politicians talking about climate change and, at best, making non-binding agreements isn’t as effective as, say, pushing $500 billion in climate spending through Congress in the U.S., investors forcing oil companies to reduce spending on new fossil-fuel production or any number of more concrete actions.
I love to write about international climate politics, and there are several arguments I could make for why COP matters, from the voice it gives to the most vulnerable to the cooperation it fosters between countries that might otherwise be at odds. But today I want to look at just one reason: international climate discussions play a crucial role in setting the direction of travel.
A version of this story first appeared in the Climate is Everything newsletter. We’re currently sending a daily email from COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland. To sign up, click here.
To explain how this…
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Source : time
