The Daily - A Last Chance to Avert Climate Disaster?

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

In a giant conference hall in Glasgow, leaders from around the world have gathered for the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Convention, or COP26. This is the 26th such session.Many say this may be the last chance to avoid climate disaster. Will anything change this time?Guest: Somini Sengupta, the international climate reporter for The New York Times. Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: The opening day of the COP26 summit was heavy on dire warnings and light on substantive proposals.We have a live briefing from the conference, where the focus is now turning to behind-the-scenes talks and how to finance the different proposals to combat climate change.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. Hundreds of heads of state have gathered in Scotland for what they say may be their last real chance to avoid a climate disaster. I spoke with my colleague, Samini Sengupta, about whether they're right, and if global climate talks like these ever really accomplish anything. It's Wednesday, November 3rd.

Hi. Hey, Simini. I was rushing from one end of this giant conference center to this quiet corner where I'm at, and I got stuck in a scrum with, I think, John Kerry coming out. And then I got stuck in another scrum with, I think it was Prince Charles, but I'm not really sure. That's a heck of a set of scrums.

And me trying to squeeze in between. So. The Adventures of Climate between. So. The adventures of climate reporting. Yeah. So Simini, I wonder if you could just describe exactly where you are and what you're seeing all around you. So I'm in a giant conference center in Glasgow,

officially called the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Convention. So it's called COP26 for short. This is the 26th such session. There are plenary halls where the leaders are giving their speeches. There is a pavilion where every country can set up its own pavilion. And the one from Tuvalu, which is a Pacific Island nation, I just walked past it this afternoon, and they have these life-sized polar bears in life jackets. It's become quite a spot for selfies. I think we have to comment on the metaphorical intent of that.

I believe the metaphorical intent is that the ice is melting. The polar bears need to be rescued. Right. There's also a little penguin hanging from a noose above the polar bears. A darker metaphor. Yeah, pretty grim. Ooh, a darker metaphor. Yeah, pretty grim.

Rumors have spread that Australia, the Australian pavilion, is serving free coffee, so there's quite a long line there today. So that's kind of what it looks like, yeah. Hmm. Well, as I think those dark scenes you just described hint at, we are at a moment when the climate is in crisis. And despite years and years and years of global talks, despite treaties like the Paris Agreement on Climate Change that come from those talks, carbon emissions have gotten worse, not better. And extreme climate events are becoming even more destructive, not less.

And so I think the question for many people is, what exactly is the point of a conference like this? Haven't we learned that these global climate talks are not really an effective way to solve the climate problem? And I wonder if you can engage in that skepticism for a moment, that these conferences can seem like a lot of pomp and circumstance and empty promises. There are some who would look at these climate summits and say, look, you come together every year and you all make speeches and you promise various things. They are all voluntary. They are not binding. And in the end, you're not doing what the science demands, which is to pivot really quickly away from burning coal, oil, and gas to limit the rise in global average temperatures. And so, you know, the frustration that you hear is this is all a bunch of talk and there's not enough action. Okay. And what's the optimist's case, the argument for seeing a conference like this as important, as meaningful, and ultimately impactful? Right. So another way of asking that is, you know, why bother when things are so bad?

Well, the argument you will often hear is precisely because things are bad and they could be much worse is why you need a summit like this. The future is not pre-written. It's up to the big, powerful countries that are gathered here to determine what kind of future is going to be most likely. The point of this summit is for the leaders of this big polluter countries and for everyone else who's affected by climate change to gather in one place to nudge each other to do better, and to hold each other to account. The whole thing is built on this system of diplomatic peer pressure. Okay, so with that in mind, these two arguments about this conference, what has actually happened at this conference so far? I know we're just a few days into it, but they've been meaningful days.

So far, I know we're just a few days into it, but they've been meaningful days. So the conference began Sunday. And in a way, the conference really began with this other meeting, which happened in Rome. And that's where the world's 20 biggest economies, the G20, which are also the 20 biggest polluters, were meeting. And they were trying to come to an agreement on what they're willing to do to address climate change. And they actually took some incremental steps. Probably key among them was that they agreed to, quote unquote, pursue efforts to keep a very global temperature rise to within 1.5 degrees Celsius

between pre-industrial times and the end of this century. And why does that pledge matter so much? Because that feels like a familiar pledge. Well, that is one of the goals of the Paris Agreement. It is increasingly an important North Star because after you get past 1.5 degrees, the likelihood of the really, really bad stuff goes up significantly. That's the scientific consensus. And right now, by the way, we are on track to rise by about 3 degrees Celsius. by about three degrees Celsius. So after this meeting in Rome, where they commit themselves to 1.5, they all fly from Italy to Glasgow. You can shove your climate crisis up your arse. You can shove your climate crisis up your arse. By the time they reach, there are protesters greeting them, essentially saying

that they are doing a lot of talking and not a lot of doing, and Greta Thunberg, among others, are leading chants saying, No more blah, blah, blah! No more blah, blah, blah! Enough of this blah, blah, blah.

No more blah, blah, blah! No more blah, blah, blah! She's making the skeptics' case for this conference. Right, so then the summit begins with speeches. It's time to say enough. Enough of brutalizing biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, makes a powerful case. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper.

We are digging our own graves. He says we are digging our own grave by continuing to drill for oil and gas and coal. I urge you, choose ambition, choose solidarity, choose to safeguard our future and save humanity, and I thank you. Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to COP. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of Britain, which is the host country.

Welcome to Glasgow and to Scotland, whose most globally famous fictional son is almost certainly a man called James Bond, who generally comes to the climax of his highly lucrative films strapped to a doomsday device.

He begins his speech with an analogy of James Bond and a clicking time bomb. We are in roughly the same position, my fellow global leaders, as James Bond today. Except that the tragedy is, this is not a movie. And the doomsday device is real. And then, ladies and gentlemen, Joe Biden appears on the podium. My Build Back Better framework will make historic investments in clean energy,

the most significant investment to deal with the climate crisis that any advanced nation has made ever. And this is, of course, the reentry of the United States into the Paris Agreement after President Trump pulled the country out of the Paris Agreement. And we have to help much more than we have thus far. God bless you all and may God save the planet. Thank you. We also hear from small and very, very vulnerable countries. Your Royal Highness, Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. The Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Motley, says... The pandemic has taught us that national solutions to global problems do not work.

This is the moment for leaders of big countries to lead. Do some leaders in this world believe that they can survive and thrive on their own? Have they not learned from the pandemic? Can there be peace and prosperity if one third of the world literally prospers and the other two thirds of the world live under siege and face calamitous threats? As I speak, Your Excellencies, our global canoe is headed for storms that will sink us while seawater pours aboard through massive gaps. You also hear from the leader of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama.

He said the existence of countries like his, low-lying Pacific island nations, are not negotiable. To all leaders here, the message of the Pacific is simple. Our canoe is sinking. Pick up your buckets and start bailing now before it's too late. Thank you. And these are really reminders to everyone else in the hall about what's at stake. Honorable guests, this brings us to the end

of our national statements. And what are you thinking as you're watching these speeches, especially from the smaller island countries? I mean, I've covered several international summits convened by the United Nations,

like this one. And it strikes me every time that this is where countries big and small, rich and poor, powerful and almost never heard from if you are in the U.S., they all get the same airtime. They all stand at the same podium. They negotiate with each other. It is the ultimate platform for global collective action. And in this case, on a really, really big and high stakes global problem. So this would be another argument for the optimist version of why these conferences matter? As a realist, I can tell you that a summit like this is where the Davids and the Goliaths in the world, you know, among nations, they sit at the same table, they egg each other on, they pressure each other. It's not a one-way street. It's not the powerful pressing only small, vulnerable countries. It's also the other

way around. And it's where the leader of really powerful, big, rich countries like Germany or the United States have to hear the leader of Fiji or the leader of Barbados. Tell them, this is your moment to lead. Or blame them for things that have gone terribly wrong. That too. But of course, the big question is, are those large, wealthy nations going to actually act? Are they going to make commitments and keep them in ways that benefit those small, vulnerable countries? Precisely. We'll be right back.

So, Sumini, what kind of commitments and pledges are actually made at this conference? Right. So has this summit produced in the first three days a coherent global plan to exit fossil fuel extraction and use? No. But have there been significant steps announced in these last couple of days? Yes. First, the United States has led this effort to persuade something around 90 countries to sign on to a pledge, again, a voluntary pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Okay, and why does that matter? How big a deal is it? It matters because methane warms the atmosphere super fast. It's produced in oil and gas operations,

in trash landfills, and all kinds of things. Now, we'll have to see how countries fulfill that pledge. They're going to have to go back and change their rules and regulations, or maybe there are laws to actually reduce their methane emissions. And notably, there are a lot of key countries that are not on board with this so-called global methane pledge. Like? So Russia is not on board, a major oil and gas producer, nor is China, nor India, nor Australia. Those are some pretty big gaps in that agreement. Yes. So some pretty big gaps there. Okay. What else?

The other big global accord that we heard about today was a commitment to end deforestation by 2030. So about 100 countries signed onto to this. It includes Brazil, which of course contains a big chunk of the Amazon, the lungs of the planet. It includes Russia, which has some really important big boreal forests. It includes China. But this is all a bit of a deja vu because in 2014, world leaders promised to reduce deforestation by half by now. And they promised to eliminate deforestation entirely by 2030, which is exactly what the accord announced today says. In fact, since that pledge, deforestation actually accelerated. So, you know, let's see if second time around, world leaders will actually keep their promise.

So in theory, we should be quite skeptical of this pledge because this pledge was made in the past and not kept. In theory, we should be skeptical of all pledges because all pledges are voluntary. And what matters is how they achieve those pledges. Got it. So Sumini, taken together, if kept, how would these two pledges, on methane and on deforestation, how much progress would that represent when it comes to 1.5 degrees

and keeping warming beneath that threshold? Both the methane pledge and the deforestation pledge are significant, but taken together, they are not going to be sufficient to reach the 1.5 threshold. Okay, so those are multi-country agreements. What about individual countries? What kind of pledges and promises did they make relating to 1.5 degrees? There were two significant individual country pledges. The first one came from the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said India would significantly ramp up renewable energy production and that by 2030, 50% of its energy mix would come from renewable energy. This was rather vague, with very few specifics, and there was a lot of head-scratching,

but still a significant commitment by a big emerging economy to ramp up renewable energy sources. emerging economy to ramp up renewable energy sources. He did not, however, say anything about the main source of electricity in India, which is burning coal. And he didn't say anything about India's coal use. However, on Tuesday from South Africa came a very important announcement about that. South Africa said that it would begin to plot its exit from coal and it announced a sort of transition plan. The reason why this is important is that South Africa is the first big emerging economy to say, yep, we're going to exit coal and this is how we're going to do it. And this commitment could send a very important signal to other emerging economies about how an exit from coal can actually happen.

Okay, well, what about China, the United States, and Russia, three of the world's largest and biggest polluters? Did they make any meaningful pledges here? The United States had already said early on this year, soon after President Biden took office, it announced its national climate plan or its climate goal. And in it, the United States said it would reduce by about 50% its emissions by 2030 compared to the emissions levels in 2005. That's pretty ambitious. The big question, of course, is how is this administration going to deliver that target, given that it faces some pretty

significant opposition still in Congress on its kind of main climate legislation? Right. Okay, what about China and what about Russia? Right. Okay, what about China and what about Russia? China, too, has already said that it would stop funding coal-fired power plants overseas, which is a big deal because China is the biggest funder of coal-fired power plants overseas. However, China has said nothing so far about when it plans to get out of coal at home. It consumes by far the largest share of coal anywhere in the world. And China's updated climate plan is not that different from its original climate plan, which is that China will continue to grow its greenhouse gas emissions until 2030. That's China.

emissions until 2030. That's China. Russia has announced a rather vague net zero target by 2060. But of course, Russia has no plans at all to rein in the extraction of oil and gas from its territory. So when we think of the biggest polluters, the countries that so many of these smaller countries like Barbados and Fiji are looking to for leadership, pleading to for leadership at this conference, how should we be thinking about the impressiveness or ambition of these commitments? They don't seem that impressive or ambitious in their details? Well, in reality, they are nowhere close to the 1.5 degree target. Right. So does that mean that this peer pressure model, the purpose of these conferences, is failing? Is this the skeptics' version of the conference coming to pass? Well, let's truth squad this for a minute, right?

Please. Let's do a thought experiment and say, well, what if there was no Paris Agreement? And there was no diplomatic forum like this where countries nudge each other to set better climate targets and report back and, you know, submit all this data that journalists like us can study and hold their feet to the fire. Let's say there wasn't any of that. So a year before the Paris Agreement was agreed to in 2014, the global average temperature was on track to heat up by nearly four degrees Celsius by the end of this century. Okay. Where are we now? Well, we are on track to heat up by about three degrees Celsius. If all countries

meet the targets that they've set for themselves, that could go down to about 2.4, 2.5 degrees of warming. Right. Still bad, but you're saying not as bad as it could be. As my colleagues wrote last week, where we're at is a better result. It's still devastating. So what's the lesson of that thought experiment? So two lessons. First, that emissions can be reduced, that temperature rise can be limited. And two, that perhaps this whole system, the way the Paris Accord is built around a system of diplomatic peer pressure around which the Paris Agreement is built, can deliver some results. And that is the whole point of why an international

climate summit like this is taking place. So to return to me to the question we started with, what is the value of a conference like this at this extremely dire stage in our climate history? It sounds like what you're saying is that this self-evidently imperfect system is a system that does accomplish something. It's clearly not working as well as everyone would like, but it's better than the alternative, which is leaving every country to their own devices and hoping that they do the right thing for the climate on their own. Is that the thinking? Well, look, what I can tell you is that this is a fundamentally global problem that no leader on its own is in a

position to address. So it needs, at its core, global collective action. A conference like this, a summit like this, is the first step in nudging countries, particularly big polluting countries, to do better. The second and most important step is to see if they will, to hold them accountable. Right. For which, no doubt, we need another conference. That's right. There will be another climate conference, and I will be covering it. Well, Sabini, good luck. Thanks for having me.

Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Good luck. Thanks for having me. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to Notre Dame. Thank you. Wow. All righty, Virginia, we won this thing!

In the first major elections of the Biden presidency, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, has defeated his Democratic rival, Terry McAuliffe. Together, together, we will change the trajectory of this commonwealth. It was a major setback for Democrats in a state that Biden won last year by 10 points.

In the race for governor of New Jersey, the contest between Republican Jack Cittarelli and his Democratic opponent, incumbent Governor Phil Murphy, remained too close to call. to call. Meanwhile, in Boston, Michelle Wu was elected mayor in a nonpartisan election, becoming the first woman and first person of color to lead that city. And finally, tonight, New York has chosen one of you, one of our own. I am you. I am you. One of our own. I am you. I am you. In New York City, as expected, the Democratic candidate for mayor, Eric Adams, soundly defeated his Republican rival. Adams, a former New York City police officer, will become the city's second black mayor. After years of praying and hoping and struggling and working,

we are headed to City Hall. Today's episode was produced by Muj Zaydi, Claire Tennesketter, Michael Simon Johnson, and Rob Zipko. It was edited by Lisa Chow, Patricia Willans and MJ Davis Lynn and engineered by Chris Wood.

Original music by Marion Lozano. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.