This year’s key climate negotiations, COP26, happen at the end of this month in the United Kingdom. Since Brexit, that country is desperate for a showpiece to prove that there is such a thing as “Global Britain”. The stakes are high.
Research by the United Nations showed last month that global temperatures are on course to rise to a deadly 2.7°C higher thanpreindustrial levels. The talks are key to pushing countries to be more ambitious in the measures they are taking to prevent that from happening.
Developing countries are also asking where the $100-billion a year is that they were promised by rich countries to adapt to this heating.
But success at COP is now up against the reality of how Britain and its peers have treated the rest of the world. The latest chapter is Covid-19.
Wealthy countries raced to lock down as many vaccines as possible. Despite havingmoney on the table, African countries and their peers were locked out and people are dying as a result. Those purposefully excluded countries are angry.
Covid-19 has shown that when a crisis unfolds, selfishness prevails. In a century where global heating has already led to innumerable crises, this has wider ramifications.
It is particularly significant because climate negotiations, like COP26, are based on every country in the world working together to tackle the most complicated challenge in human history.
Britain has kept a swathe of African countries on its Covid “red list”, forcing expensive and time-consuming quarantines – even if delegates are vaccinated, seeing as the UK does not recognise a vaccination if it was administered in an African country.
This week, South Africa’s chief diplomatic spokesperson floated the idea on Twitter of affected countries rejecting this unequal treatment and not going to the negotiations.
South Africa is a key bridge in climate negotiations, a driver of the continent’s climate diplomacy. In the event of such a boycott, COP26 would likely fail.
Delegates who do have to quarantine will need to start travelling to Britain in the next few weeks. If COP26 fails, the next one will be hosted on African soil. – The Continent
