Radical Hope in the Face of COP26
Stella Rose Banowetz | December 9, 2021
Special to The Echo
Activists protesting outside of PreCop in Milan, Italy.
COP26 (Conference of the Parties) ended on November 12. A summit that was said to be the planet’s “last, best hope,” at least according to its chief organizer, John Kerry. After two weeks of debate, diplomats from over 200 countries reached an agreement. They all agreed to come back next year with plans to keep carbon emissions in check.
At the beginning of the summit, U.N. Secretary-General, António Guterres, stated that a main goal had to be to limit the rise in the temperature of the earth to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. This proclamation acknowledged the consensus among countries that time is running out.
How much countries should cut carbon emissions is still unresolved. 10 years ago, the wealthiest economies of the world promised $100 billion per year to developing countries by 2020 for climate-related costs but have failed in their efforts. Due to this, among other things, countries such as South Africa and Indonesia do not have the financial means to make reductions at the rates demanded by the U.S. and other western countries, nor do they deem it fair since those countries are responsible for 50% of the total greenhouse gas emissions released since 1851.
China and India, two countries included in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) made significant promises. China made a joint agreement with the U.S. to decrease methane emissions. India set 2070 as their deadline to reach net zero emissions.
Similar to carbon emissions, methane and deforestation were buzz words at this year’s summit, with over 100 countries agreeing to cut both within different time frames. The deforestation agreement includes over 85% of the world’s forest. The conservation of these ecosystems is critical in the fight against global warming. Strides towards the reduction of methane were brought on by the Biden administration as part of the agenda of the newly restored Environmental Protection Agency.
Concluding COP26, many people, specifically youth, felt that the final agreement lacks teeth and is not enough. The promises made at COP26 did little to quell youth climate anxiety and give them hope. Cross-generationally, this is not the case.
“We have to find and keep hope at the center of this conversation because we know things are dire,” said Jeff Keith, professor of global studies at Warren Wilson College (WWC). “We can't wallow in that, or we might actually resign ourselves to destruction. … What I really hope is that young people can continue to inspire older people to care even more about this issue. Because I believe it's well within our capacity to avert total disaster. …”
This sentiment is one shared by many leaders, but for youth around the world, it represents excuses for inaction on a crisis that will hit them the hardest.
“I think it is far past time that we stop waiting on world leaders to make the kinds of changes that we would need to have a just and livable future,” said Ella Syverson, a second year Bonner Crew member at WWC. “I think that world leaders at this point in time are against us, and I have nothing to say to them. They hold so much power and cannot, within the systems we have that are running our countries, make the kinds of monumental changes that they have the power to in the way that would meaningfully affect people's lives.”
In the age of activists like Greta Thunberg and other youth protesters, anger is often weaponized by people in power to dismiss voices, but what if there is power in rage?
“I happen to spread this personal phrase that ‘our hope lives in the rage,’” said Chris Zega, a climate activist from Mexico. “... We're so enraged by what these people are doing so that we have actually not given up, and we will never give up because we're going to win this fight. … I think relying on the anger as a form of combating the grief and combating the pain and as a form of saying no to climate injustice is very valuable and very healing.”
For youth, rage co-exists with a strong sense of resentment for older generations for putting the future of this planet on their shoulders, especially given the science. Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius wrote a paper in 1896 predicting the long term changes that increased carbon dioxide levels have on the earth’s surface temperature. People have known before Gen Z was alive what would happen if they didn’t alter the course of this planet and yet very few leaders took action.
“That’s a tricky thing with youth that I run into a lot,” said Monica Dwight, a UC Davis graduate and USA country coordinator for COY16 (Conference of Youth). “They didn't cause climate change, and I'm 25. I'm also youth. I mean, we all played a role in it and also, I recognize that there's this undue burden on young people. And there's, you know, case studies and specific law cases about this … where they talk about that and it's kind of the cards we've been dealt and so I'm like, you know, while we didn't maybe cause it, what can you do to help yourself? It's a question that I try to ask if climate anxiety is arising for myself.”
Holding space for the complicated emotions and situating themselves within the center of this crisis might be the key that many youth look for in relieving symptoms of climate anxiety. How they frame it in their minds could be critical in finding the solutions to inaction regarding climate change.
“I think that for youth, the most important thing is to recognize themselves in the system, to see what privileges they have and to know that to have climate doom in your mind, is what they want us to have,” said Zega. “What the capitalist and what people like Jeff Bezos and people like Boris Johnson want us to have in our minds is the fact that climate change is inevitable, and the fact that the two degrees are inevitable, and that we’re only at their mercy.”
Action is simultaneously the next step beyond climate anxiety and a conduit for channeling those emotions into something larger than themselves. Radical hope has long been the spark that lights revolutions. The activists of Gen Z embrace this.
“... What we need urgently is that everyone mobilizes ... that everyone finds a way to respond, to react, to be angry, to grieve together, and to have joy together and to know that they don't have the right to write our death sentence, that we have the right to write our own life of the planet because we are the people,” Zega said. “We are the grand majority of the world. We cannot let them win.”
