Mixed feelings

COP26 has been bringing together parties from across the world to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Open University has official observer status at COP26 and is learning from the conference to inform the university’s wider sustainability mission and inspire students and staff to take action. Here are some of the conference’s highlights, as told by our Open University observers. 

COP26 Diary - 8 November: Graeme Smith, Team Manager in Student Recruitment and Support.

Day 5 is Youth and Public Empowerment day. On the train through to Glasgow I sat beside a group of young activists who had taken the day off school to attend the protests. They are angry and rightfully so. It isn’t going to be the mostly-over-50 groups of COP26 negotiators who will be dealing with these consequences in 30 years time. Having said that, I was speaking to a Panamanian delegate who told me their group of negotiators is the youngest at the conference with an average age of 27… Go Panama.

After we cleared security a group of around 50 young climate activists were chanting and holding signs.  A hopeful start. The first event I saw today was Project Everyone: Code Red for Climate Storytelling. This showcased some fantastic projects and videos. The most inspiring was Heartbeat of the Earth - Google Arts & Culture. I’d strongly encourage everyone to check it out. It contains different pieces of visual art and uses data to tell the story of many aspects of the climate emergency. It’s mesmerising, moving and depressing.

My feelings on the progress made at the conference are mixed. There were inspiring moments in smaller, more informal events in the pavilions and the action zones. There are some amazing people with a deep desire to affect economic and systemic change, who are cynical of the ability of the current crop of policymakers to legislate effectively, and of investors to invest green-mindedly. I would have liked to have seen more (or any!) events with speakers challenging each other, rather than just presentations or similar-minded guests agreeing with each other.