The Last Chance Saloon: Xie Zhenhua, John Kerry, Greta Thunberg, James Shaw and Scott Morrison at COP26 in Glasgow. Illustration / Rod Emmerson
The Last Chance Saloon: Xie Zhenhua, John Kerry, Greta Thunberg, James Shaw and Scott Morrison at COP26 in Glasgow. Illustration / Rod Emmerson
There will be shock troops. They'll come from all over Europe, including Milan, where Greta Thunberg and the activists from Fridays for Future hosted their own Youth4Climate conference last month, and Stockholm, where Thunberg has been dancing to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up onstage.
Rickrolling aside,they're angry.
Thousands more will come from Extinction Rebellion (XR), the group dedicated to non-violent disobedience and disruption. "We don't do hate," says XR supporter and Guardian columnist George Monbiot. "We do anger. We do love."
The shock troops will also include the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth, late-blooming activist: "Extraordinary, isn't it," she said the other day. "I've been hearing all about COP. It's really irritating when they talk, but they don't do."
Climate activists in a Fridays for Future climate protest in Milan this month. Photo / AP
Prince William and Kate, sponsors of the biggest green prize in the world, the Earthshot Prize, will be there.
"We need some of the world's greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live," said William last week. Earthshot, not moonshot, geddit?
Prince Charles and Camilla are going too: "This is a last-chance saloon," he says. "Literally. Because if we don't really take the decisions that are vital now it's going to be impossible to catch up."
Also at Glasgow: well-organised shock troops from a host of small countries, including our Pacific neighbours.
Working with Barack Obama, they won a remarkable victory at the Paris COP conference in 2015. The target was going to be a limit on warming of 2C above pre-industrial levels. But as Ralph Regenvanu from Vanuatu says, "It was the personal presence of Pacific leaders that really made a change and brought us to the 1.5 degree figure that we have now in the agreement."
Climate change shock troops will gather in Glasgow, including Prince Charles (left) and Prince William. Photo / Getty
Half a degree doesn't sound like much, but on low-lying atolls and coastal regions everywhere it could be the difference between survival or being drowned.
Six years after Paris, though, the world has not risen to the challenge: we're still on track to overshoot. And unfortunately, because of Covid, about a third of the Pacific nations delegates may not get to Glasgow at all.
The starting line
Glasgow will also host 25,000 other people, 125 world leaders and two dreams. One is to stop global warming. The other is to stop global warming while preserving as much as possible of our existing way of living on this planet. Those two dreams are often but not always in conflict.
President Joe Biden will be there, attempting to justify America's claim to world leadership. Scott Morrison, the Australian PM, has also agreed to go. He won't have much: his Government remains committed to a low 26-28 per cent emissions reduction goal for 2030 and cannot agree on getting to net zero by 2050.
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison is going to Glasgow, but he may not like everything he finds when he gets there. Photo / supplied
Net zero by 2050 is the bare minimum committed to in Paris. Halving emissions by 2030 is the much more important goal right now. For developed countries, it should be more.
Vladimir Putin of Russia has declined the invitation to attend. Narendra Modi of India is still to reveal his plans, likewise Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Jair Bolsonaro
