Climate agreements always fail before they succeed

By David Fickling

The history of the United Nations conferences on climate change is one of failure. That comes with the territory. If a single meeting solved all the problems to avoid catastrophic global warming, there would be no need for any further action.

That’s the best way to think about the disappointing outcome of talks between the Group of 20 major economies ahead of this week’s Glasgow climate summit. The participants’ communiqué did not make a firm commitment to phase out coal, one of the key objectives of the negotiators of the United Kingdom.

The final communiqué also does not include commitments to reduce methane emissions, and the date when the world will reach the net zero goal was described as “towards the middle of the century or around 2050″ Instead of 2050, while other references were smoothed or removed.

This doesn’t seem like a good omen for what’s to come in the next fortnight, but it’s not that all is lost, yet.

On the one hand, reaching a G20 agreement is not just an aperitif before the main diplomatic party. All the major key economies that will make it so difficult to strike a deal in Glasgow also participated in the negotiations in Rome.

Among the G20 members are the largest exporters of fossil fuels, such as Russia, Saudi Arabia and Australia; large consumers, such as China, USA e India; rich nations, like Japan and France; and others relatively poor, such as Indonesia and Brazil. As the real negotiations have not yet started, each side keeps their cards hidden.

Thinking of the process as a card game is a useful way to see what is happening. In game theory, a widely used way of looking at world affairs, the classic prisoner’s dilemma paradox shows that the best strategy for players is to expose their teammates and leave all parties worse off.

That’s worrisome, but if the game is played repeatedly, a strange thing happens: the benefits of cooperating for a mutually beneficial result start to increase, because bad actors suffer reputational damage and are rejected by their peers.

This is, in essence, the structure reproduced by the UN Conferences of the Parties, such as COP26 in Glasgow. One-on-one meetings are not expected to be sufficient. Therefore, the Paris Agreement of 2015 includes a “ratchet mechanism”, According to which countries continue to increase the ambition of their climate goals every five years. (Hopes are so high around Glasgow precisely because it is the first lap of that ratchet from Paris.)

It hardly helps that the success of such events often depends on the diplomatic skills of the host governments. That’s no cause for optimism, considering that the UK has spent five years alienating its biggest trading partners and is currently exploiting a common dispute with France over fishing rights with analogies to the 1982 Falklands conflict.

Some disappointment is inevitable. Even if the coal fleets of China and India close for the next two decades because cheaper renewables drive them out of business, the leaders of the countries are unlikely to commit to that path at this point.

Even Paris – now remembered as a historic success for climate diplomacy – was viewed by many at the time as a truce, thanks to the belated acceptance that the 197 member states were never going to agree to a legally binding treaty like the previous Kyoto Protocol. or the Montreal Protocol on chemicals that damage the ozone layer.

The Paris conference did not herald any great change, he stated. Benjamin Sporton, then executive director of the World Coal Association, to the Financial Times after the event.

He couldn’t be more wrong: coal consumption is now around 10% lower than what the International Energy Agency believed it would then be, and the IEA’s long-term scenarios have changed a picture of never-ending demand growth. for another in which consumption had already peaked when Sporton was speaking.

There are likely to be many disappointments and recriminations in the coming weeks. The time left to address the climate crisis shortens with each meeting, and we cannot afford to waste any opportunity to lower the curve.

Yet far from the conference rooms, a more important story is unfolding: a revolution in energy systems that have powered the world since the industrial revolution. A stronger agreement would certainly speed up that process, but the lack of an agreement will not be enough to reverse it.