COP26

It’s the end of COP26 and there are still many questions up in the air…

Let's take this time to reflect…

· Are all countries, or the greatest influencers of the world, addressing the same objective with the same focus?

· Are the signed agreements feasible?

· Has the COP become a meeting where countries only consider advantages and disadvantages?

· Do localities and businesses come first?

We can see from one side the urgency of reaching a concrete goal related to climate change, and, on the other, agreements that have been signed between nations, but which, in practice, have not been put into action.

According to Marcio Astrini, from Observatório do Clima (Clima Observatory), it is customary to say that fighting climate change and reducing carbon emissions is not something that happens in negotiations. It occurs in the forest, in the city, in different places. It's not by signing a piece of paper that, as if by magic, emissions decrease.

There is an inconsistency between everything. At this moment, Europe is preparing for a fuel crisis in the winter; President Biden is begging OPEC to produce more oil; China is turning on its coal-fired power plants amidst a shortage of electricity and weather, building more because growing the economy is a much higher priority; The Kremlin's budget revolves around oil and gas production; Australia has already presumed that it will continue to mine coal after 2030; India has not signed up for net-zero emissions, while several hundred million Indians still live in poverty, and the country needs more energy from fossil fuels than all of Africa. This was just part of the whole in the last COP meeting, and, at a certain point, made us reflect and ask some very big questions.

What we realize is that, even after 26 years, there was no effective agenda that promoted

the meeting between the measures that should have been taken, both for the "net zero" of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and to convince developed countries to help emerging nations sign up for further CO2 reductions. There is no use in just talking about the goals to avoid a catastrophe in the future to protect humanity. That is not enough. It would be better if we set realistic goals. Everyone should keep up the journey step by step, bringing to practical light what and how much we should be reducing in terms of energy consumption, changing habits, and reviewing infrastructure each year.

It is futile to make unrealistic promises if there will not be an integrated global plan, guiding, discussing, and supporting the initiatives by all localities, assuming the reality and the needs of each region. Nobody should be surprised by the failure of COP26 because, at last, there wasn't a coherent strategy to deal with the issues related to climate changes and their important and technically, politically sensitive complex matters. This will not emerge from a meeting of 30,000 people representing more than 190 countries and countless industrial and non-governmental groups with different interests and needs.

Without judging whether everything that happened at the COP is right or wrong, the fact is that there is a considerable gap between the goals set and the reality of each participating country. The truth is that when we analyze the numbers (world energy consumption by type of fuel – see chart below), we can't see the effectiveness in driving an electric car if what guides it is energy based on fossil fuels. We see that the energy demand is increasing year by year, and the need for investment to change this energy matrix is much larger than the USD100bi promised for emerging countries. We are creating a more imposing detachment between poor and rich people, and we are unlikely to have significant results by 2030 or even 2050.