GLASGOW – There are Christian environmental pilgrims who, for 55 days, walked 700 kilometers from London. Others who have traveled even a thousand from Poland and Germany. The inhabitants of the Pacific islands threatened by climate change have arrived. And then there is Greta Thunberg. That two days ago she landed as a star from Amsterdam, obviously by train, with hundreds of people cheering her. The Swedish activist yesterday warned: “Now let’s move on to concrete actions. Otherwise, as Queen Elizabeth said, it will be just talk.”
After the G20 in Rome, all roads lead to Glasgow. Where COP26, the crucial UN climate summit, began yesterday. “Listen to the cry of the Earth and the poor!” Was the warning and symbolic passing of the baton from Rome by Pope Francis. The pontiff was unable to come to Glasgow, as did Elizabeth II, the latter for health reasons. But there are the leaders of over one hundred countries and, from today, also those of the G20, from Mario Draghi to the “landlord” Boris Johnson. In a city with exceptional security measures (costs of 120 million euros, a record in the United Kingdom) and problems are not lacking: the accommodations are insufficient (15 thousand rooms available for 25 thousand guests and costs up to 600 euros per night) and there is it was also a rat invasion.
But the future of the world will be decided in the rooms of the Scottish Event Campus, the armored conference center where thousands of Sherpas and negotiators will gather. In Scotland there are Covid restrictions, unlike in England: masks, spacing and mandatory tests, every day. Outside the Campus, on the other hand, tens of thousands of protesters are expected, who will put pressure on the leaders to commit themselves to containing the increase in the earth’s temperature below 1.5 degrees. Possible? For Johnson, there is a “60% probability”. Getting all world leaders to agree on 1.5 degrees (Xi Jinping and Putin will follow remotely) is now an impossible goal in two weeks. The resistance of the world‘s largest polluter, China, which does not stop from zeroing emissions only in 2060, and India, which has not yet published any serious reduction plan, are for now unsurpassable. Unless there are dramatic turns, there will be no new treaty to save the planet. Instead, we will try, “to keep this dream alive”, especially gnawing on the resistance of the two Asian countries and drawing up a roadmap to gradually cut emissions over the next few years.
“If we fail in Cop26 it all comes down,” Johnson told Rome. Meanwhile yesterday in England the trees came down due to a storm, and they blocked the London-Glasgow railway line by footing hundreds of participants, including the British Deputy Minister of the Environment Goldsmith. “Let’s chase away the ghosts of the past”, exhorted the president of Cop26, Alok Sharma. In addition to continuing the work of persuading Beijing (a matter for the Americans given the poor relations of London with the Chinese) and New Delhi (here the British act together with the Italians, but India is asking for enormous compensation), it will also be crucial to involve and conquer developing countries, which are also dependent on coal.
On this last point, the shot that COP26 could give, according to British negotiating sources, is that finally many poor countries will see the money for the green transition: not with the promises of politicians, but, black and white, with investments, the leverage and convergence of private individuals, directly involved in the Glasgow summit unlike the G20. In addition, there will be the world of finance and the giants of fossil energy – here the game is of the UN special envoy, Mark Carney. The United Nations yesterday launched yet another alarm: the last seven years have been the hottest ever on Earth. And with current climate commitments, emissions would rise by as much as 16% by 2030. There is no time to lose.
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