Article

Comment

Sustainability

28 November 2024

6 min read

Does COP make any difference?

When climate deal makers and justice seekers meet.

Julia Kendal

Juila is a writer and social justice advocate.

A speaker holds two fingers up while sitting in front of a backdrop reading 'United Nations Climate Change.

Brazilian politician Geraldo Alckmin addresses COP29.

Vice-Presidência da República, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

This year’s UN climate talks have come to an end with a headline-grabbing figure, reports of deep divisions and cries of failure. How do we understand the legacy of these negotiations for us now and for the generations to come?

COPs bring together negotiators from almost 200 nations, along with tens of thousands of people from across business, civil society and local communities. They gather to make decisions about this crisis that touches every community and part of our lives and our world, though not equally (which is part of the issue). The annual negotiations are the culmination of months of action and diplomacy. The negotiators pore over draft texts to understand the implications of a new set of brackets, they search for sources of free coffee to power them through the increasingly sleepless fortnight, and scrabble at the end to land on a consensus.

At COP29 this year, the key things at stake were a new finance deal that was three years in the making and a wave of 2035 national climate targets. Lurking amongst discussions were the implications of the US election results. The pressure was on to land strong decisions before Donald Trump – who withdrew the USA from the landmark Paris Agreement on climate last time he was in office and has stated his intention to do so again – returns to the White House.

What did we get at the end of all of this?

Finance in the spotlight

The new finance goal of at least $300 billion per year by 2035 for lower-income countries seems like a big number, but is around a quarter of what is needed, $1.3 trillion. For what was dubbed 'the finance COP', wealthier nations came with a distinct lack of actual money, despite their obligations towards those countries least responsible and hardest hit by climate change. The $300 billion could be spun as a tripling of the previous commitment of $100 billion a year – but taking into account inflation, it’s nowhere near that in real terms. And it’s not just about the quantity; much of that money is likely to be loans, driving already strapped countries even further into debt.

When lower-income countries argued for that $1.3 trillion, this wasn’t them trading Pokemon cards in the playground. It was about the very existence of people and whole communities. Climate Action Network, a global network of over 1,900 civil society organisations, labelled the outcome a betrayal, while India's delegate Chandni Raina called the final text “little more than an optical illusion”.

To build meaningfully from this, the last-minute addition about using the next 12 months to develop a roadmap towards that $1.3 trillion needs to be a priority. This finance could come from sources such as taxes on shipping, aviation and the wealthiest in society. This money would be an investment in the world we need – more secure and stable in the face of growing climate chaos and more frequent flooding and storms.

Emissions reductions left in the dark

The other key test of this COP was meant to be the countries’ national climate commitments which are due to be updated and strengthened by February next year at the latest. Despite this, the UK was one of just a few countries to come with a new target. In Baku, nations had the opportunity to collectively agree how they will implement the commitments from last year to transition away from fossil fuels – but kicked those decisions to next year. This is in the context of plateauing action to curb warming; since 2021 we have been on a path toward 2.7°C by the end of this century. (This analysis suggests the recent election of Donald Trump could add 0.04 °C of warming due to rolling back US climate policies; not good, but not the derailing some feared. The potential impact on collective action is as yet unquantified.)

A mirror to the world

Questions are inevitably being asked about these COP events: are they “no longer fit for purpose”? Is it time for something else to deliver the scale and urgency of action required?

I was struck by the words of Alden Meyer, with his 40 plus years of experience in climate policy:

“COPs are where the world holds a mirror up to itself to see how well it is doing in the fight against climate change; when the image in the mirror is ugly, it does little good to blame the mirror.”

We do not like what we are seeing. Two weeks of tough negotiations culminating in imperfect outcomes expose our frustration with the rate of our change. They magnify our longing for COP to solve this crisis that frightens and overwhelms us.

But COPs are only as good as the governments, businesses and people that will turn the agreements into lived reality. That’s why those national climate plans due next year matter so much. This mirror indicates that climate seems to have slipped a little down the priority list, despite the growing urgency.

The mirror analogy is a good one – but we also need to recognise where there are vested interests who would obfuscate what we see and what is decided. Among the thousands who descended on Baku were 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists — more than all delegates from the ten most climate-vulnerable countries. This is part of a recent trend of outsized influence by those who would invest against our collective future for the profit of burning more fossil fuels.

Weeks like last one remind us of the flaws in the COP process – but the answer is not to ditch the whole thing. COPs are the only forum where every country is heard on this global issue. Existing power imbalances are reflected and needed to be addressed; a concrete finance figure only appeared on the last scheduled day of negotiations, putting lower-income nations were under pressure to accept it as clock ran down. In the final hours, several delegations walked out of a meeting to express their frustration with what was on offer.

COPs provide a space for civil society, youth activists, faith and community leaders to speak into global decisions and shape the world and our future. Getting the agreement we got is in part testament to the advocates who kept finance solutions on the agenda.

The COP processes need to be made fairer and more accountable, to steer a clearer way forward for climate action of the scale and speed we need. But if we scrapped them, we’d only need to create a different space for international diplomacy in their place – and we certainly don’t have time for that.

We see only in part

Ultimately, our disappointment with COP shines a light on our longing for a more hopeful future. It would be easy to let weeks like the last one harden or discourage us. But legacies are hard to see in the moment. Prior to the 2015 Paris Agreement, we were headed for at least 3.5℃ of warming by the end of this century; a catastrophic change to our world and inheritance for future generations. COPs have played a key role in shaving almost a degree from that trajectory. It still isn’t enough, but it isn’t nothing.

COPs show us something of the world as it is – messy, broken and yet suffused with people devoting themselves to justice again and again. For many, there’ll be some much needed rest to catch up on, because this is a race for the long haul. We live and act and speak for justice knowing that legacies don't fit nearly into a headline or media quote. They are slower to be realised and understood. The challenge to us all is to keep sowing faithfully, knowing we may not be the ones to reap in our lifetime. To keep acting in love and hope – even when the end is not in sight.

One of the early church leaders, Paul, wrote in a reflection on love: “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.”

Article

Change

Community

Politics

8 July 2024

6 min read

Camden: what’s up in Keir’s backyard?

The new Prime Minister’s constituency has valuable lessons for the country.

Simon Walsh

Simon Walsh is a communications consultant, journalist and non-stipendiary priest in the Diocese of London.

Kier Starmer walks along a residential development's path with two other people.

Starmer and local councillors in Camden.

‘What good ever came out of Nazareth?’ was asked of Jesus. The same might now be said of Camden, which lies at the heart of the Holborn & St Pancras constituency. A safe Labour seat since the 1980s, its present incumbent is Sir Keir Starmer who has been handed the keys to Downing Street in the General Election.

His wallet apparently has on it ‘Take me home to Kentish Town’. Two buses link Kentish Town, where he lives, with Whitehall – a route of about four miles. He will go into government with a very full in-tray, and many of them are issues he knows first-hand from his own constituency. I know them too, having lived there for 20 years.

Sometimes I cover services for a clergy colleague in the nearby parish of St Mary’s, Somers Town. The church is on Eversholt Street which runs along the eastern side of Euston station, incidentally the capital’s first mainline railway terminus. Last year, as I arrived for a mass one rainy Saturday morning, a random group of people sheltered in the doorway. They were, I discovered, addicts waiting for a drugs drop. Towards the end of mass, one of the group – a young woman – came into the back of church and found a pew in which to start preparing her fix. Once I had disrobed, I asked if she wouldn’t mind doing it somewhere else.

Another time, in the same church, a young woman from Spain was asking for money. She had answered a job advert on social media to come and work on a chicken farm. Having arrived and paid her accommodation for a week, she found there was no chicken farm, and trying to find other work was almost impossible because of paperwork. What could we do to help? The church itself is in dire need of financial support too.

St Mary’s Flats... were among the first examples of public housing in the country to have electricity and Jellicoe became something of a social housing celebrity.

Somers Town was transformed 100 years ago when its energetic parish priest, Fr Basil Jellicoe, created the first housing association. Dismayed by the squalor of Victorian tenements, he set about raising funds for The St Pancras House Improvement Society. Jellicoe was only in his mid-20s but had a solid Anglo-Catholic background founded on mission and a heart for the poor. The cramped and filthy conditions with extreme poverty were ‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual disgrace’ – for him, the opposite to the sacraments.

By the time Jellicoe moved from the parish in 1934, the slums had been cleared and a number of the new blocks built, the first being St Mary’s Flats, with others given saints’ names. They were among the first examples of public housing in the country to have electricity and Jellicoe became something of a social housing celebrity. Tragically, having worn himself out he died at the age of 36. His legacy is one of praxis – active Christianity meeting social problems where they are – and his model became the blueprint for many other housing associations since.

No surprise, therefore, that families struggle to afford to live in the area and migrate further out. As a result, schools have started to close.

The area remains a swirl of social problems in addition to the drugs. Mental health issues are rife. There are plans to redevelop St Pancras Hospital which houses mental health services. The area suffers from traffic and noise pollution, and lacks communal spaces. Camden Council recently saw fit take one corner of a public green in Somers Town on which to build a tower block of multi-million pound flats, handy for nearby St Pancras Station. Crime rates are high with muggings and mobile phone thefts a daily reality. Last year, as mourners left a funeral one Saturday afternoon at St Aloysius Church just a few streets down from St Mary’s, a drive-by-shooting injured six people. Starmer called the incident ‘appalling’ and spoke of ‘extra patrols and community support’ after a conversation with police.

The area has become highly expensive. Local businesses are being priced out by increased rents. Very little social housing has been built this century. The average house price in NW1, which encompasses the Nash terraces of Regents Park, the council blocks and social housing of Somers Town, is £1.3 million. A two-bed flat is in excess of half a million quid. No surprise, therefore, that families struggle to afford to live in the area and migrate further out. As a result, schools have started to close – four in as many years recently. In his acceptance speech in Camden Council’s offices near St Pancras station, close to the world-renowned Crick Institute and Facebook’s UK headquarters, Starmer namechecked the mythical ‘girl from Somers Town’ and his hope for her future.

Charles Dickens went to school around here and knew these streets well. His 1848 novel Dombey & Son detailed the destruction and chaos caused in the area by the building of the railway line through it. 175 years later, it has been HS2, the great White Elephant which has dug up streets, seen whole blocks of accommodation and hotels demolished, diverted roads, and axed much-loved institutions like the Bree Louise pub. There has been no benefit to locals so far (quite the opposite, in fact) and it is a stain on both Labour and Conservative administrations. Sir Keir says he is furious at the ‘big hole’ left by the down-tools project. There is fear now that the redundant land will be subject to a ‘gold rush’ as developers circle to pick up some prime real estate.

Interviewed in June by the Camden New Journal, Starmer said: ‘The government has earmarked money for Euston. I want to see that money and obviously, if we come into power, we’ll see through all this money – and not stripped away from other projects which is the usual trick.’ He also said: ‘The other thing is we need housing. Camden desperately needs housing as many places do. So we will use it – if we are privileged to come into power – as part of our plan for 1.5 million homes.’

His manifesto has five pledges:

Kickstart economic growth

The cost-of-living crisis is biting hard here and the inequalities are stark. People need real money.

Make Britain a clean energy superpower

It’s going to need more than a few on-street charging points for electric vehicles. And the carbon footprint of that HS2 project?

Take back our streets

He wants to halve crime rates but London has around 106 crimes per 1,000 people and his own constituency feels less safe than it used to.

Break down barriers to opportunity

Camden already ranks highly in the deprivation index where barriers are concerned: schools, homes, jobs…

Build an NHS fit for the future

Again, the hospitals and GP services are cracking – high demand combined with under-investment is deadly.

A prophet is not welcome in his own country, it was said. Although the new Prime Minister was elected with a majority in his home seat, it was down to 18,884 votes from the 2019 endorsement of 36,641 votes – a drop of almost 50%. In this election, an Independent candidate called Andrew Feinstein polled 7,312 votes with his pledge to improve life for local residents. Starmer’s constituents will be counting on him to fix the nation along with the problems on their own streets. Otherwise, safe seat or not, he may no longer be welcome in Camden either.