A lot of comments seem to take the cynical route of pointing out that this is not enough or that the promises won't be kept. This is all true of course but misses why summits like the COP26 are held at all.
Elected officials need broad support from their base to enact policies that can have a hit on quality of life. Fighting climate changes with the solutions that we have right now requires actual sacrifices from the people, and that is never good news for elected officials because their constituent ultimately value their comfort much more than possible future gains or sea level in third world countries.
Now when they hold a summit, they get some needed spotlight on the issue and get to have everyone in the media stress out how important that fight is. This translates into a stronger support for environmental policies at the local level which turns it into a key issue for voters. Once that's achieved the line moves for everyone and it's easier to push far reaching changes.
On forums such as HN where the majority is center-left (at least on environmental issues), achieved higher-education and probably younger than the median American it's easy to lose sight on the fact that climate change is still not seen as an absolute truth for a significant chunk of the world[1]. Summits such as the COP26 helps raise more awareness and hopefully we'll have enough support before it's really too late.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/18/a-look-at-h...
The language that has been agreed on for coal and fossil fuel subsidies has been "further watered down as the result of an untransparent process".
>The Indian delegate has just called for a change to the wording of the draft climate agreement.
>He asks for the line to call for the "phase-down" not the "phase-out" of unabated coal power.
>This would be a major change to the text.
>The line around coal and fossil fuels is seen as unprecedented language in a COP agreement.
OK, I'm the president of a huge country. 50% of its population tells me it wants me to leave fossil fuel. I write down my plan in a COP26 agreement. That plan is everything but leaving the fossil fuel.
I sleep well at night because I absolutely don't represent my citizen's choice (cynical scenario)
OR I know something they don't know which allows me to sleep well... (hopeful scenario)
Dear HN: What should those of us who are completely powerless in this do?
I am a fairly empathetic person, and the fact that over a billion people are likely to die from wet bulb or whatever else, purely in the name of money, greed, & systematic buffoonery has me pretty mentally fucked up already.
Would it be in my best interest to find some sort of drugs that completely turn off my empathy for the next two decades? Because the other options I can think of aren't very compatible with life.
The outcome at this point is essentially inevitable, the U.S. seems pretty incapable of rolling out the amount of nuclear we'll need to divert a global catastrophe.
None of these agreements are worth the paper they are printed on
The only realistic solution from global warming will not come from government action, or attempting to force nations into economic untenable positions that have the effect of lowering living standards for their populations.
The only realistic solution is via technological innovation where by coal, oil, etc are made obsolete by natural market forces, not artificial tax schemes, fines, or other such agreements.
People that continue down the path that making these fuels more expensive by artificial government actions will continue to be disappointed in the results, as people need to heat their home, move goods, etc and they will always want do to that by the cheapest means, injecting government policies that simply increase prices of those basic needs of society to make alternatives more attractive will never ever be popular with the majority citizens of any nation which is why nations look to water down the language.
This is a PR event with no substance, like most international agreements.
Depressing Frustrating
I don't know what to say
Is China signed and committed ?
Binding?
The Paris agreement has not been kept to.
This agreement will not be kept to.
What will happen is climate change will continue, perhaps accelerating a bit more slowly than it would otherwise have done, becoming more and more destructive and harmful, until the situation is so up-front right-now deadly serious that action is finally taken, by which time action will not matter, because of the huge lag between cutting emissions and reduction in the rate of climate change.
What will be needed at that point is geo-engineering, on a global scale. The technology for this does not exist, it will need to be invented, and then cost-reduced, and then deployed on a global scale on a point-blank timescale - like going from zero to manufacturing every single car in the world in five or ten years. I have no hope this will actually work, and it's madness for civilization as we know it, and to avoid the deaths of billions, to depend upon it.