COP26 was a flop but there is still hope

The outcome of international climate summits has barely changed during the last few decades. The task of forging a global consensus on transformative mitigation strategies to the climate emergency somehow always eludes the participating parties, and the result is to keep kicking the can down the road as if to say, “Let future generations take care of the problem.” Unfortunately, despite being touted as “our last best hope”, the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow ended up being just another big flop, thus confirming that people should not expect international climate summits or governments to solve the climate crisis. The final document, called the Glasgow Climate Pact, showed no progress with regards to existing national plans to cut emissions by 2030, which are not enough to limit global warming to 1.5C. International cooperation, let alone solidarity, is extremely difficult to attain under the existing political order, and as leading international affairs scholar Richard Falk has argued, “Only a transnational ethos of human solidarity based on the genuine search for win/win solutions at home and transnationally can respond effectively to the magnitude and diversity of growing climate change challenges.” Third, “the logic of capitalism” guides the world economy. In practice, revolutionary activism means turning every city and every town in every major country around the world into a stronghold of the global climate movement.