By Victor Reyes, Communications Coordinator at Canadian Jesuits International
The legacy of COP26 is yet to be determined but mainstream media has already made its success contingent on the outcome of the negotiations between governments of countries that emit the most greenhouse gases. If this was what COP26 was all about, I would agree wholeheartedly with Greta Thunberg’s assessment that the whole thing is “a failure and a greenwash PR campaign.” There are, after all, 25 other COPs to attest to this.
However, there is another side to COP26. There are global efforts, chief among them the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the intergovernmental treaty that established the framework to address climate change and put together conferences and presentations to share knowledge and ideas on how to solve the climate crisis. There are the people from all over the world, a lot of them young men and women, who took to the streets of Glasgow to show their anger and displeasure at their governments for mishandling this crisis.
This other part of COP26, I am more optimistic about. In this COP26, we don’t hear the empty platitudes of world leaders; we are listening to the voices of people and communities who are feeling the direct impacts of climate change and who offer workable solutions to a global problem from a local perspective. We are also hearing words of caution from marginalized communities who are impacted not just by climate change but by proposed solutions coming from the Global North.
I listened to a COP26 public event that focused on how climate change is impacting the Arctic region. For years, we have known that the Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the world. The Sámi, Indigenous Peoples who live in Finland and neighbouring territories, have known this even before western science confirmed it. Now, using both indigenous knowledge and science, the Sámi are able to document and develop strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change while practicing their traditional way of life.
Tuomas Aslak Jusso, President of the Sámi Parliament in Finland, talked about reindeer herding and how this allowed them to sustain their communities and way of life and also preserve their culture.