The Energy Mix, November 2021
Corporate and government interests are delaying procedures and deflecting responsibility for the climate crisis as part of a “network of obstructionism” deployed to mire down the COP 26 negotiations, said experts on a panel this week hosted by the World Wildlife Federation in Glasgow.
Expectations that COP 26 would deliver real solutions were low to begin with. Shortly before the conference, wealthy countries had displayed a “breathtaking” lack of ambition when they failed to raise climate financing funds first promised in 2009. Such policy shortcomings should come as a shock, considering the devastating consequences predicted. But experts say the poor performance follows from a well-crafted strategy to undermine climate action.
“It is blatantly obvious here at COP that we are seeing what I frame as a leadership crisis, and a complete disempowerment of so many people who are not here,” Jennie Stephens, director of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University, told the panel.
