COP26 climate talks: too much hot air for cooler heads to prevail
- Sadly, a global consensus on a problem does not equate to global action on the solution
- Leaders with an eye on the next election are simply not going to let people freeze no matter how rational the negotiated carbon reduction goals
The plain Biden is a Catholic with a role-model wife, a wretched US Congress and rosaries in his pocket (it is reported). With the pontiff, he seemed entirely in his element: joking and calling for greater kindness in the world.
The two discussed climate and inequality problems. Right, Biden is no second coming of Theodore Roosevelt, but nor is he the global embarrassment that his predecessor was. He deserves a better Congress at home, a successful crisis response internationally and divine intervention to get worthy domestic programmes off the ground.
Nothing of this magnitude will happen in Glasgow during COP26, the United Nations climate conference, of course. It’s sad beyond redemption; the summit is about nothing less than the future health of this planet, if one is to believe the overwhelming scientific consensus, as one must – for if we give up on science, we give up on using our brains as a survival tool.
But human nature is not just data-based; social scientists cannot immunise our body politic against national interest seeking the way medical scientists have a shot at ending global pandemics.
The convocation in Glasgow has assembled with plenty of urgency but forgotten about the need for agency. At best, it’s a messy mass of leaders forced into national interest silos no matter how majestic (or sincere) their climate visions.