Newsletter 133 29 October 2021

COP26 Climate Conference

& Global Democracy

We have temporarily renamed COVID-DEM as CLIMATE-DEM for the duration of the pivotal COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference, starting today in Glasgow (31 October) until 12 November 2021, convening almost 200 countries with the aim of accelerating action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As the world faces its last chance to keep warming at 1.5°C, a central objective is drastically reducing carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. With the IPCC warning of the dire consequences of inaction, early signs have been crushingly disappointing, with some commentators dubbing the meeting a 'cop out' due to leaders' failures to take meaningful action. Democratic leaders blow hot air while China and Russia's autocrats are staying at home. Already postponed due to Covid, which will limit civil society involvement, there is a real fear of world-altering failure. As Greta Thunberg put it in a recent speech to the Youth4Climate summit in Milan: ‘Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah’. We desperately need more than useless words.

In this Update we're highlighting a range of activities from our partners, the Melbourne School of Government and International IDEA, focused on the relationship between democratic performance and climate crisis, and how renewing democracy is key to tackling our climate challenges:

Webinar on 'Renewing Democracy to Tackle the Climate Crisis'
Policy Briefs on democratic reform, political inertia and the climate crisis
IDEA Discussion Paper on Democracy and the Challenge of Climate Change

International IDEA's new Discussion Paper, Democracy and the Challenge of Climate Change (published 20 October) discusses how climate change is already impacting democratic governance through its effects on food security, conflicts, water scarcity. migration and natural disasters, and how the outcome of the climate crisis will depend on whether democracies can drastically reduce their carbon footprints in the coming years. International IDEA’s work on climate change and democracy aims to support democratic institutions to successfully confront the climate crisis by leveraging their advantages (e.g. free flow of information, active civil society engagement) and overcoming the challenges to formulating effective and democratically owned climate policy agendas (e.g. short-term bias in decision-making, policy capture).

Stay updated on the Melbourne School of Government's activities through the #GoverningAfterGlasgow hashtag on social media. This forms part of the School's leading work on Governing During Crises since June 2020.

Climate Crisis is a Democratic Crisis

Every day we work with people worldwide to build this platform for helping us understand how the pandemic is challenging and re-shaping democracy globally, and the many ways we can defend and improve our democracies. We believe, as do many others, that the pandemic presents just a taster of the challenges facing democracies if the climate crisis continues to be met with inaction. Democratic leaders urgently need to show that democracies can lead this challenge by achieving the structural reforms needed for effective action. The pandemic has shown that most democracies can mobilise and act swiftly. Big change is possible: all that's needed now is political will.

Dr Tom Gerald Daly
Director

Find out more about Tom here.