Just got back from COP and another important topic is Disability Inclusion in Climate Action. Gets no air time at all, I attended the first-ever session on the topic at a COP (in 26 years). 15% of the global population have a mental or physical disability which makes them more likely to be susceptible to the dangers of climate change, but disability is rarely mentioned in things like an Emergency Management Plan, Climate Disaster Plan, or climate action plans more broadly.
People with disabilities must be considered and brought to the table for climate action policymaking because similar to Island Nations they will be the ones to suffer most as climate change progresses. If you are interested in following up please let me know (reply to this comment) - happy to connect you to the panelists who presented on the topic.
Awesome primer on the state of affairs! Thank you.
Small note from Captain Pedant here: what small island developing states have been seeking since the '90s, and is now a major negotiating point, is "loss and damage", not "damages". The extra S is important - in legalese, "damages" refers to money that a person gets as compensation for losses/injury. "Damage", on the other hand, just means "injury to a person".
So if you leave out the S, then you're not technically asking for financial compensation - the draft text for the negotiations makes no reference to getting paid out for the suffering they have/will endure. And it means that you can get into all sorts of knots about offering "technical assistance" for adaptation, insubstantial assistance, eg. anything but hard cash.
Like you say, establishing responsibility would open up the floodgates--but one of the reasons why the floodgates aren't open yet is that missing s. And others would also say it's one of the only reasons negotiations have gotten this far--it keeps certain countries in the room. (As someone who's been in those negotiations, it makes my brain melt to know that things work like this.)
Unfortunately, it seems like the scope of these island nations' ability to sue the biggest polluters is limited, aside from imaginable delay, but even so, anything that gives them a fighting chance is a godsend.
Emily thank you for this analysis & especially for last part where the new Commission is defanged from the get-go. I’ve been sidelined with injury & not following the COP like usual. Your round-up helps me re-engage from the current state of play - thx
"The fossil fuel industry, meanwhile, was able to send 503 delegates to COP26—more than any other country, the BBC reported."
I am not quite sure I understand why the fossil fuel industry gets to have delegates at all.
Just got back from COP and another important topic is Disability Inclusion in Climate Action. Gets no air time at all, I attended the first-ever session on the topic at a COP (in 26 years). 15% of the global population have a mental or physical disability which makes them more likely to be susceptible to the dangers of climate change, but disability is rarely mentioned in things like an Emergency Management Plan, Climate Disaster Plan, or climate action plans more broadly.
People with disabilities must be considered and brought to the table for climate action policymaking because similar to Island Nations they will be the ones to suffer most as climate change progresses. If you are interested in following up please let me know (reply to this comment) - happy to connect you to the panelists who presented on the topic.
Awesome primer on the state of affairs! Thank you.
Small note from Captain Pedant here: what small island developing states have been seeking since the '90s, and is now a major negotiating point, is "loss and damage", not "damages". The extra S is important - in legalese, "damages" refers to money that a person gets as compensation for losses/injury. "Damage", on the other hand, just means "injury to a person".
So if you leave out the S, then you're not technically asking for financial compensation - the draft text for the negotiations makes no reference to getting paid out for the suffering they have/will endure. And it means that you can get into all sorts of knots about offering "technical assistance" for adaptation, insubstantial assistance, eg. anything but hard cash.
Like you say, establishing responsibility would open up the floodgates--but one of the reasons why the floodgates aren't open yet is that missing s. And others would also say it's one of the only reasons negotiations have gotten this far--it keeps certain countries in the room. (As someone who's been in those negotiations, it makes my brain melt to know that things work like this.)
How come the organizers don't cap delegates at a reasonable number in the single digits... ?
Unfortunately, it seems like the scope of these island nations' ability to sue the biggest polluters is limited, aside from imaginable delay, but even so, anything that gives them a fighting chance is a godsend.
Emily thank you for this analysis & especially for last part where the new Commission is defanged from the get-go. I’ve been sidelined with injury & not following the COP like usual. Your round-up helps me re-engage from the current state of play - thx