Why the COP26 climate summit will be both crucial and disappointing

“THE RAIN it raineth every day,” Feste tells the audience at the end of “Twelfth Night”. And the COP it COPpeth every year. Since 1995 the countries bound by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have missed only one conference of the parties—when the pandemic struck in 2020. These COPs can produce action plans (Bali, 2007), mandates (Berlin, 1995), protocols (Kyoto, 1997), platforms (Durban, 2011), acrimonious breakdowns (Copenhagen, 2009) and agreements (Paris, 2015). But the rise in the atmosphere’s greenhouse-gas content and the associated warming of the climate continues in spite of them—even when, as so often, they are hyped as the world’s last chance.

As diplomats, scientists, lobbyists, activists, artists, the media, politicians and businesspeople gather in Glasgow for COP26, which begins on October 31st, it is therefore easy to dismiss the entire affair. That would be a mistake. The UNFCCC and its COPs, for all their flaws, play a crucial part in a process that is historic and vital: the removal of the fundamental limit on human flourishing imposed by dependence on fossil fuels.