{"id":199306,"date":"2021-11-15T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=199306"},"modified":"2021-11-12T05:56:36","modified_gmt":"2021-11-12T05:56:36","slug":"like-locusts-lobbyists-swarm-cop26-in-glasgow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/11\/like-locusts-lobbyists-swarm-cop26-in-glasgow\/","title":{"rendered":"Like Locusts, Lobbyists Swarm COP26 in Glasgow"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Represent.Us<\/p><\/div>\n

11 Nov 2021 – <\/em>Global warming causes global swarming. In 2018, Indian Ocean cyclones hit Oman and Yemen, creating conditions for an outbreak of desert locusts. Swarms grew throughout 2019 and 2020, two of the hottest years on record. Swarms with 80 million insects have swept across Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, and, as of last week, Kenya, consuming enough staple crops that would otherwise feed 35,000 people, every day. Scientists have linked the growth of locust plagues to climate change.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Glasgow, fossil fuel industry lobbyists are swarming the United Nations climate summit, known as COP26. This conference, called the \u201clast, best hope\u201d for the climate, is falling far short of what\u2019s needed to avert irreversible catastrophe. United Nations Environment Program (UNEP<\/span>) Emissions Gap Report, released just before this year\u2019s COP<\/span>, warns that, with the current pace of pledged emission cuts by the world\u2019s nations, we are on track to see a 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.3 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average global temperature, far above the 1.5 degree C (2.7 deg F) target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n

Critiques of COP26 from activists both inside and outside its walls range from business as usual to abject failure. The United Kingdom\u2019s shambolic management of the event, its strict visa requirements and its failure to deliver on its promised, pre-COP<\/span> vaccination plan for attendees from nations with low vaccine availability have made this summit the whitest, most privileged COP<\/span> in its 30-year history.<\/p>\n

While widespread access challenges have prevented thousands from participating, over 500 oil, gas and coal lobbyists have been given the red carpet treatment. If they were a nation, according to a new Global Witness report, they would be the largest delegation at COP26.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose trying to burn down the table should not have a seat at it,\u201d Pascoe Sabido, Researcher and Campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory, said to the press. \u201cThis is the same industry that has spent the last 50 years denying, delaying and blocking climate action, so how on earth are they still allowed in? The only way we\u2019re going to leave these talks with anywhere near the ambition needed is if we kick these big polluters out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the presence of this army of fossil fuel lobbyists, some progress in the official proceedings is evident. A draft COP<\/span> outcome document released on Tuesday included the word \u201ccoal\u201d for the first time in 30 years, calling for nations \u201cto accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nigerian environmental leader Nnimmo Bassey, responding to the draft text, said on the Democracy Now! news hour, \u201cSaying they should phase out coal, then only phase out subsidies for fossil fuel, means that this COP<\/span> believes that fossil fuel use\u2026should continue.\u201d He added, \u201cthe tendency is that a draft document may be further watered down, so that final document may actually come out to say don\u2019t phase out anything or remove subsidies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bassey was speaking on the 26th anniversary of the execution of renowned Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged with eight others on trumped up charges to silence their effective campaigning against Shell\u2019s oil extraction in the Niger Delta. Another plague on the planet has been the murder of environmentalists, land and water defenders, and climate justice campaigners, with over 1,000 killed just since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015.<\/p>\n

Climate scientist Kevin Anderson of the University of Manchester has long pointed out that, while the \u201cclimate glitterati\u201d gather at the annual COPs and achieve little, the climate doesn\u2019t negotiate. \u201cIf we are to deliver on the 1.5 degrees commitment that [U.S. President] Joe Biden made earlier this year, the math and physics tell us we have eight years for a good chance of 1.5,\u201d Anderson said on Democracy Now! \u201cThe protesters and the civil society movements in their work, engaging more locally, all of that is much more in line with what science is calling for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside the fortified convention center, the civil society Anderson praises has been swarming as well, with a massive march of over 100,000 people and a four-day countersummit with hundreds of panels and events across Glasgow and online. The COP26 Coalition\u2019s lead spokesperson, Asad Rehman, was actually invited to address the COP<\/span>. He tore up his prepared remarks in frustration with the lack of progress, and said instead,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe richest have ignored every moral and political call to do their fair share. Their broken promises across 26 COPs are no longer fooling anyone\u2026We know it is ordinary people who change history, and we will change history.\u201d<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/em>Amy Goodman is the host of \u201c<\/em>Democracy Now!\u201d a daily international TV\/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of <\/em>Breaking the Sound Barrier, released in paperback and now a <\/em>New York Times best-seller.<\/em><\/p>\n

Denis Moynihan is the co-founder of <\/em>Democracy Now! Since 2002, he has participated in the organization\u2019s worldwide distribution, infrastructure development, and the coordination of complex live broadcasts from many continents. He lives in Denver where he is developing a new noncommercial community radio station.<\/em><\/p>\n

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 democracynow.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

11 Nov 2021 – The UK\u2019s strict visa requirements and its failure on promised pre-COP vaccination for attendees from nations with low vaccine availability have made this summit the whitest, most privileged COP in its 30-year history. Meanwhile, over 500 oil, gas and coal lobbyists have been given the red carpet treatment. If they were a nation, they would be the largest delegation at COP26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":65754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[229,1023,686,2604,2716,401,2721,993,685,291,639,124],"class_list":["post-199306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-activism","tag-banksters","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-cop26","tag-environment","tag-glasgow","tag-global-warming","tag-greenhouse-gases","tag-military","tag-uk","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}