It’s all about the title
This post started as a question. What does COP26 stand for? And why 26? Well, it started back in 1975 in Berlin with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the only thing I can find about that was, they agreed to meet up the following year in Switzerland. In Switzerland they rejected “harmonized policies” in favour of “flexibility”. This was the general pattern of what was to follow….
In 1997 it was off again, this time to Kyoto where the famous Kyoto Protocol was born and most countries agreed to legally binding reductions in greenhouse gasses to below 1990 levels by 2012. How did that go? Anyone?
Then it was off on the never-ending world tour, 98 Argentina, 99 Germany, 2000 Netherlands, 2001 back to Germany. These guys racked up the Air miles! To prove it they had a second meeting in 2001 in Morocco to get the winter sun. They did agree here on international emissions trading which goes something like, “to cut my emissions, I pay you to plant a tree. Whether you actually plant it or just cut it down later is not up to me…”
They it was back on the exhausting circuit, 2002 India, 2003 Italy in time for Christmas Shopping, 2004 back to Argentina and so forth, Kenya, Bali, Poland, Denmark, Mexico, South Africa, Qatar, Poland, Peru, Paris, Morocco, Germany, Poland, Spain and now finally SCOTLAND!! And in NOVEMBER!!
So, WHAT is COP? COP stands for “Conference of Parties”! Yes, I would never have guessed that either. Apparently, the man who writes the nametags couldn’t be bothered with “The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” so he just called it C.O.P.1, C.O.P.2 etc. I think he meant that to this lot life is one long party.
The BBC reporter Richard Black once called the delegates “climate tourists” . The 25,000 delegates and hangers-on certainly have done a lot of travelling in 26 years!
Certain countries still do not attend and even the Queen does not know who is coming to this one!
COP has never travelled to the USA, Russia, or China. Researching for this article I find no real agreements reached, no real targets met, and nothing yet politically binding.
So don’t think for a moment that COP 26 will be any different. Just words. Or as someone said Blah, Blah, Blah
I would love to hear your comments below on this “tongue in cheek” post and your thoughts on COP26.
Why is it important? What will be decided? What is YOUR view?
This must be a subject we all have an opinion on.