For the first time since she took to the world stage with her climate strike, Greta Thunberg will not be attending the annual global summit for the Conference of the Parties – the COP. It is an international affair that brings together world leaders and experts to help build consensus about how best to tackle the climate crisis.
With the COP26 having to be initially delayed in 2020 due to the pandemic, there is still a lot of uncertainty about what shape it will take in 2021 – if it will go ahead, as it is being planned, and if the event will be in-person or virtual. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is adamant about ensuring it is done face-to-face, with it being suggested as the most important since the 2015 Paris Summit.
However, Greta Thunberg cites several issues for her planned absence, that will most likely not be resolved before November, the planned month of the event.
Vaccine Nationalism
The main cause for concern for Greta appears to be suggestions of vaccine nationalism, which she suggests will limit a real democratic process from taking place at the summit.
Vaccine nationalism comes down to the idea that the richest countries are the ones that are buying a wildly disproportionate majority of the vaccine doses, allowing their citizens to be protected from the virus but stifling participation from people from poorer countries who cannot gain adequate access to vaccines.
CNBC reports that high-income countries have bought up more than 4.6 billion doses, but lower-income ones have secured only 670 million doses. Covax, a scheme where richer countries have donated vaccine doses for collective use for poorer countries that cannot access them has been important for distributing the vaccine with 38 million doses so far, but far more supply is needed.
One of the key obstacles to vaccine equity is the patent protection behind manufacturing effective vaccines, which have been upheld to protect pharmaceutical companies from sharing the formula at an affordable price. At the moment, poorer countries might have to wait until at least 2024 to achieve meaningful immunisation – far too long to wait for the COP26 summit in November this year. World leaders have urged President Biden to waive the patent protection on vaccines, but there has not been any substantial action yet.
The Whitehaven Coal Mine
However, another facet to the decision could be the UK government’s decision to approve the creation of a new coal mine in Cumbria. This has been met with disapproval and calls of hypocrisy from the Conservative government which pledged to make the United Kingdom carbon-neutral by 2050 but is acting counter-productively to that.
The government and local authorities have suggested that the mine could be a source for many new jobs, as well as helping to support the steel manufacturing industry in the region, which is connected to ongoing efforts to keep the Liberty steel afloat after their chief financiers, Greensill, appointed administrators to reformat their debt payments.
With the recent news about the lobbying scandal around former Prime Minister David Cameron on behalf of Greensill, the new coal mine could well be an option pursued by the government to help keep the affected business afloat through lobbying.
While these measures, if they go through, could be important for retaining jobs in the coal and steel sectors of the UK, the accusation of hypocrisy and ignoring their climate duty will undoubtedly be a factor for Greta Thunberg’s decision to potentially skip the summit.
If the government is to honour its commitment to a carbon-zero policy by 2050, it would need to stop burning coal by 2035, which would decide to open a new coal mine difficult to defend. Furthermore, more coal mined will help to lower the prices it, which would only make it more appealing to buy – none of which is conducive with green government policy going forward.
While Greta Thunberg would not be taking on a predominant role at the summit, her absence would be telling, and a symbolic blow to the UK government if it wants to legitimize its eco-friendly stance.
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