Occasionally, Feedback is allowed out of the office stationery cupboard. Just very occasionally, we do so to attend international summits where the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. And so we found ourselves bound for COP26 in Glasgow, armed with 65 years of accumulated wisdom 鈥� institutional, but not quite yet institutionalised.
Eliminating elephants
If we kissed the ground on arrival, it was only to commune with a floor poster at Glasgow Central station proclaiming that Scotland鈥檚 railways had reduced their carbon footprint by 5000 elephants, and inviting us to join their 鈥渏ourney to net zero鈥�.
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We can only endorse the suggestion from Alex Bowman, a Glasgow native who also spotted the poster, that we need a standard prototype elephant if such reductions are to be verified. Having net-zero elephants strikes us as a more problematic concept, although not outside the envelope of where we might be heading if we can鈥檛 bend the climate curve.
Subtle diplomacy
鈥淒o you have a copy of the text?鈥� a delegate hissed at us. We didn鈥檛: we only wandered into this room, its desks furnished with microphones arranged in a large square pointing inwards, in search of a cup of tea.
It turned out to be video-linked to negotiations next door that were hammering out a communiqu茅 on long-term climate finance. In fact, no one had a copy of the text, which made things a little hard to follow. The negotiation facilitator, who called out nations by number to speak their turns, had a world-weary air. 鈥淚 feel like a bingo caller,鈥� he said at one stage.
A particular sticking point was a clause saying the conference 鈥渘otes鈥� the efforts of high-income countries towards mobilising $100 billion a year of long-term climate finance. Make it 鈥渆xpresses concern at the lack of鈥�, suggested India. Try 鈥渨elcomes鈥�, countered Australia. 鈥淚 really don鈥檛 want to be wasting time on this,鈥� supplied Switzerland, in an admirably neutral if undiplomatic vein. This is how the future is decided.
Gaiety of nations
Considerably more fun was the exhibition space, where nations and organisations set up pavilions to outcompete each other in green messaging. Feedback鈥檚 highlights included the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation鈥檚 bamboo bicycle, delightfully lightweight and a joy to ride, although it remains to be seen how it would fare in an altercation with a panda鈥� car.
The life-size polar bear models in the pavilion from the Pacific island nation Tuvalu were a reliable draw for selfie-seekers, at first sight an implausible juxtaposition, then a poignant statement connecting those with most to lose in a melting world. The corporate-sponsored Climate Pledge Theatre attracted much , as a kind of meta-commentary on the lack of climate action for which the COP process has become famed.
Alcohol flowed most freely in the Scandinavian pavilions. Presumably for lack of anything particularly ecological to say, Qatar ignored climate change entirely and focused on eye-bulgingly strong coffee and scale models of the stadia for the 2022 football world cup.
On the final Thursday afternoon, with time running out to seal a deal, UN Secretary General Ant脫nio Guterres warned in the main hall that the world was on a track to catastrophic warming. In Pakistan鈥檚 pavilion, people were watching the T20 world cup semi-final against Australia. There is important stuff, and then there is cricket.
Buzzword RINGO
BINGO, ENGO, RINGO, TUNGO, YOUNGO, IPO, LGMA, WGC and Farmers: not Santa鈥檚 reindeer or an expanded and updated list of the seven dwarfs, but the .
These are roiling seas of acronyms and initialisms. 鈥淏INGO鈥� is an exalted nested example, the grouping of 鈥渂usiness and industry NGOS鈥�. 鈥淔armers鈥� are farmers, and we leave you to work out the rest.
Some abbreviations have become untethered from meaning, floating adrift of words that might reasonably constitute them. CMA is the shorthand for signatories of the Paris climate accord; . COP = conference of the parties, but you knew that one.
Omnibus Potemkin
Outside the perimeter fence, protesters marched, coalesced and unfurled, while Glasgow, the Gaelic 鈥渄ear green place鈥�, gave of its best. More than its best, perhaps, as fleets of electric buses ferried delegates to and from the city centre, travelling free thanks to a universally valid public transport smartcard. Perish the thought that any such radical policies should be adopted in our journey towards net zero.
Fair COP
鈥淗URRY UP PLEASE IT鈥橲 TIME鈥�, read an artwork in neon lights opposite COP26鈥檚 one and only bar, an urgent message to delegates both to drink up and to face up to their responsibility to change the world. When a deal was finally struck deep into overtime, exhausted delegates negotiated the world鈥檚 pavilions in an advanced state of deconstruction. Insert metaphor here.
It wasn鈥檛 enough; it never could be. COP26 was messy and human, a chaotic, uneasy amalgam of science, diplomacy and activism. And it supplied our best hope.
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