Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Climate Action Pretense at COP26
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
17 Nov 2021
Climate Action Pretense at COP26
Climate Action Pretense at COP26

Joe Biden’s presence at COP26 was a photo opportunity giving the impression that he is fighting the climate crisis. But the U.S. and other governments continue carbon production while pretending to take action and ignore the needs of the Global South who suffer at the hands of the rich nations
 

The 26th Conference of the Parties, COP26, climate summit ended with its president fighting back tears. Alok Sharma came to Glasgow, Scotland hoping for an agreement to end the extraction of coal. Instead he said this, “I apologize for the way this process has unfolded. I am deeply sorry.”

The international climate conferences are a perennial disappointment to anyone who understands the depth of the world wide catastrophe. Every year the rich capitalist nations find a way to undermine the process and consign millions of people to misery and devastation. Activists from all over the world gather in an effort to have an impact on the process, but they are literally outnumbered by fossil fuel lobbyists who always get what they want.

This conference ended with an agreement to “phase down” the use of coal instead of phasing it out altogether. Phasing down is deliberately ambiguous and makes a mockery of the 2015 Paris meeting which ended with an agreement to allow a temperature increase of no more than 1.5˚C. The fact that climate agreements allow world temperatures to rise is but one indication that the process falls far short from what the world needs.

Yet the seemingly small 1.5˚C will have devastating consequences, with droughts and storms bringing catastrophe to millions of people. The can is always kicked down the road and the final agreement is a sham.

The political duopoly in the United States behaves as it always does with phony heroes and phony villains as in professional wrestling. Republicans refuse to participate in climate agreements, democrats show up for the cameras, but only to fool the rubes into thinking that something important is being accomplished.

It doesn’t matter if democrats show up at COP26 if they refuse to respond to elephants in the room. The United States military is the world’s biggest polluter but its carbon production, and that of other nations’ forces, are exempt from climate goals. When a journalist asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders about military spending and its role in climate change, it was clear they had never considered the issue at all. They were shocked to be asked a question which showed a direct relationship between their actions and global warming and then responded with nonsense. They said the military, which contributes to climate change, needs money to respond to the climate change it causes by its very existence. Why does it matter that George W. Bush and Donald Trump withdrew from previous climate agreements if democrats follow in their footsteps and ignore even the flimsy goals it asked the U.S. to meet?

Joe Biden appeared in Glasgow but no one should be impressed. Like his predecessors he has opened public lands to oil drilling. Keeping temperature rise to 1.5˚C requires that carbon emissions be cut in half. If the United States were serious there would be no fossil fuel extraction on public lands. It would have to end altogether.

The U.S. is not the only nation keeping the status quo as the world heads toward a cliff.  Brazil and Indonesia continue massive deforestation for logging and cash crop production but claim they will adhere to the agreement requiring the practice to end by 2030. Apparently they plan to destroy all of their forests before that time and then pat themselves on the back because they are no longer killing trees. India insisted on watering the coal extraction language, but if other nations had been serious they would have spoken up and demanded an end to the world wide coal industry. India agreed to be the bad cop in this story. The G20 nations have subsidized fossil fuel production to the tune of $3 trillion just since 2015. Clearly the U.S. is not alone in its subterfuge.

Meanwhile the need to compensate the Global South for environmental damage is placed on the back burner of priorities. In 2009 rich nations promised to pay $100 billion per year for five years beginning in 2020. There is no mechanism to do this and the final COP26 agreement only includes a promise to continue discussing a problem which is already clearly understood.

The movement needed to fight for climate justice must be massive and international in scope. The first order of business is to understand the manipulations and duplicity that COP26 and prior agreements have engendered. Kyoto, Paris and now Glasgow are not the saviors they pretended to be. They are in fact the obstacles.

Margaret Kimberley’s is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents  . Her work can also be found at patreon.com/margaretkimberley   and on Twitter @freedomrideblog. Ms. Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

COP26
Climate Crisis

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Black Alliance for Peace
Los Angeles Fires: The Santa Ana Blowback of Capitalist Climate Change Neglect
15 January 2025
The fires that have been raging in southern California for days are destroying the cities and homes of tens of thousands of people.
Krys Cerisier
COP29 Contradiction and the Climate
18 December 2024
Journalist Krys Cerisier attended the COP29 climate conference, where they reported and conducted interviews with activists f
Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
COP29 Summit Marked by Acrimonious Debate Over Emissions and Finance
27 November 2024
Annual climate gathering reflects divisions between the industrialized states and the Global South.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Why All Hurricanes Should Be Named “Jim”
16 October 2024
Hurricanes Helene and Milton are the result of a long legacy of segregation, environmental racism, and extraction.
Max Ajl
Dismantling Green Colonialism: Stages of a Just Transition?
09 October 2024
Dismantling Green Colonia
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Blue (MAGA) In Green (Or, U.S. Bourgeois Environmental Groups Prioritize the Democratic Party Over Environmental Justice Principles)
18 September 2024
The Democratic Party markets itself as the party of environmental protection while pursuing policies that are endangering all
Children near destroyed solar panels in Gaza
Melissa Garriga
Don’t Let Warmongers Greenwash their Ecocide this Earth Day
24 April 2024
The destruction of the environment and acceleration of the climate crisis happen silently under the veil of “national security,” despite the fa
The Climate Crisis Will End When Capitalism Ends
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Climate Crisis Will End When Capitalism Ends
30 August 2023
The climate emergency won't end because of heartfelt pleas to the people and the interests who created the crisis.
BAR Book Forum: Interview with Brittany Meché
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Interview with Brittany Meché
03 May 2023
As part of the Black Agenda Report Book Forum, we interview scholars about a recent article they’ve written for either an academic journal or p
COP27 Deliberations Reaffirm Imperialist States as Main Obstacle to Ending Climate Change
Abayomi Azikiwe
COP27 Deliberations Reaffirm Imperialist States as Main Obstacle to Ending Climate Change
16 November 2022
Developing countries and mass organizations at the COP17 summit continue to demand compensation for damage and loss created by fossil fuel prod

More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Ryan Coogler, Shedeur Sanders, Karmelo Anthony, and Rodney Hinton, Jr
    07 May 2025
    Black people who are among the rich and famous garner praise and love, and so do those who are in distress. But concerns for the masses of people and their struggles are often missing.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    LETTER: Thank you, Mr. Howe, Ama Ata Aidoo, 1967
    07 May 2025
    Ama Ata Aidoo lands a knock-out blow to white neocolonial anti-African revisionism.
  • Jon Jeter
    The Only Language the White Settler Speaks: Ohio Police Say Grieving Black Father Avenges Son’s Slaying By Killing One of Theirs
    07 May 2025
    The killing of Timothy Thomas in 2001 ignited Cincinnati’s long-simmering tensions over police violence. This struggle continues today, forcing a painful question: When justice is denied, does…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    DOGE— Department Of Grifter Enrichment
    07 May 2025
    "DOGE— Department Of Grifter Enrichment" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Brittany Friedman’s Book, “Carceral Apartheid”
    07 May 2025
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Brittany Friedman. Friedman is assistant professor of sociology at the University of…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us