“How was COP?? What was it like?? You must have had an amazing time.”

I’ve received this series of questions every time I talk to someone I haven’t seen since before I went to Glasgow, and I still have no idea how to adequately answer, because COP26 was one of the most intense and overwhelming experiences of my life. That isn’t a bad thing! It was simply so massive in scope that it’s hard to know what to bring up when asked, and it’s also hard to come up with an answer that is both succinct (people get bored if you say “RINGO” more than once) and sufficiently complex. How do you summarize something that was simultaneously deeply hopeful and cynical?

Truthfully, yes, it was incredible both personally and professionally, and I must always follow that “yes” with an “and.”

Yes: COP was amazing and also a lesson in the challenges of enacting global change in a system built on the exploitation and capitalization of fossil fuels. And: International environmental politics is incrementalist at best, and while from the inside COP26 felt hopeful, I’m still somewhat skeptical about the outcome. I tried to pay attention to social media and public reactions to COP while in Glasgow and after I came back to Durham, and it truly was a tale of two worlds. Yes, inside the conference it seemed almost a foregone conclusion that a comprehensive global energy transition would occur, particularly when listening to anyone in the energy industry, and that the problems of carbon markets would be overcome and breakthroughs in green hydrogen and carbon capture were inevitable. And, in reality, these are all huge technological, economic, and political challenges with equally huge valid criticism. Yes, major new commitments were made and the Paris rulebook was completed. And, where’s loss and damage? Where are the actual dollars for finance?

At COP26, it seemed a bit like the public had one understanding of the climate crisis and world leaders had an entirely different interpretation. Public discourse, particularly in the environmental justice space but also more broadly, was more centered on equity, historical injustice, and the lack of accountability from the Global North. This was reflected in the conference center, but primarily by indigenous and youth observers and, in the plenaries, delegates from nations in the Global South who ultimately have significantly less influence and power than those from the most developed countries. Glasgow also saw the most massive and global environmental protests in history, and a counter-conference centered on justice (the People’s Summit). Protest actions occurred every day in Glasgow, with occasional action inside the conference itself, and I’m at least hopeful that this will influence broader environmental discourse. 

Despite my reservations, I don’t see COP26 as a negative experience or a failed conference. Yes, it was sometimes frustrating, and also fascinating to observe and understand first-hand why these systems of power move like they do. This was the first time I’ve been in such a focused and global environmental space, let alone at such a high level, and the opportunity to access it is one I will be forever grateful for. I came to this class as a policy student with a grounding in environmental justice advocacy but unsure of what I wanted to do in a career. COP helped me think through this, particularly as I noticed the different geopolitical angles underlying the conference and saw what climate diplomacy actually looked like. I’m curious to see what happens at the next COP in both the justice and diplomacy spaces—what commitments will be followed through, and how will discussions evolve?