12 | New Scientist | 30 October 2021News COP26 preview
AROUND 25,000 delegates
will descend on Glasgow, UK,
for COP26, a climate conference
like no other. As a key player
at one of the most important
climate summits that preceded
it, Ed Miliband has a better
insight than most on what
those people will experience.
Miliband, who is currently
shadow business secretary for
the UK’s Labour Party, was the
nation’s climate minister at
the COP15 climate summit in
Copenhagen in 2009, which was
widely seen as a flop for failing
to make a breakthrough on global
action to curb emissions.
With 197 countries and blocs
party to the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change,which oversees the climate talks,
Miliband likens the process to
190-dimensional chess.
“I think people underestimate –
and I fear the UK government has
underestimated – the complexity
of the process,” he says. “It’s not
like any other international
summit, it’s not coming out with
a pre-prepared communiqué. Of
course, there’s been negotiations,
but it’s a relatively chaotic
process. It’s a process that
requires unanimity.”
He recalls the then UK
prime minister Gordon Brown
negotiating with other leaders
through the night in 2009 to end
a deadlock and agree a three-page
document, the Copenhagen
Accord. “Gordon’s parting wordsfor me before he left for London
the next morning were, ‘I’m
glad we’ve got this, but don’t
screw it up’, except he didn’t
use the words ‘screw it up’.”
But late that day, things
went awry. “That night, as I was
going to bed, Pete [Betts, then
the UK’s chief climate negotiator]
rang me while I was standing
in my pants in my hotel room
and said ‘it’s all going down
the toilet. The agreement is
an empty shell’.” Miliband,
who was worried about both
the geopolitical ramifications
and Brown’s reaction, rushed
back to the conference centre.
There, he found a Sudanese
diplomat giving a speech
comparing the accord to
the Holocaust. With the UK’s
microphone not working,
Miliband took the US one to
say: “We can’t have come this
far and just junk the agreement.”
One infamous moment
near the end of the Copenhagen
summit was captured in a photo
of a stony-faced Barack Obama
and other world leaders crammedinto a small, windowless room.
“I was on the edge of that picture,
the story of my life,” laughs
Miliband, who was leader of
Labour when it was defeated at
the UK’s 2015 general election.
“It felt quite anarchic. There was
very little control over who was
and who wasn’t in the room. I
remember Obama being there
and could see him thinking
‘what am I doing there’.”On his overall memory of
Copenhagen, Miliband says:
“It’s such a blur. My memory
is no sleep. Endless meetings.”
He recalls nearly running into
the then Russian president,
Dmitry Medvedev, at one point
and asking him if^ he would
increase his climate targets.
“It sounds a bit anarchic,
but there’s a reason why it’s
so difficult. This matters hugely
to so many countries and you’re
trying to do a really difficult
thing [mitigate climate change],”
says Miliband.
COP26 faces its own set of
challenges, mainly how to put the
world more closely on track for the
2015 Paris Agreement’s promise
to “pursue efforts” to hold global
warming to 1.5°C and “well below”
2°C. Current plans would see
global emissions rise by 16 per
cent by 2030, rather than fall by
45 per cent as is needed for a
chance to stay under 1.5°C.
Miliband says: “I think we’re
a long way off where we need to
be. And I think the truth is we’ve
got to push as hard as we possibly
can to get the 2030 numbers up.
But we’ve got to tell the truth.
This is a question of maths.”
Being honest about the reality
of emissions is crucial – not to
“cast a downer on everybody”,
he says, but to remind countries
that they should commit to
returning as soon as next year
with new emissions plans,
rather than waiting until
2025 as is currently agreed.
Nonetheless, he doesn’t
think Glasgow will be a repeat
of Copenhagen’s failings.
“I don’t think it’s comparable
to Copenhagen. We’re not going
to have another Copenhagen.
The political will, the business
will is too strong. It’s not going
to fall apart.” ❚Profile
Ed Miliband was the UK’s climate
minister at the Copenhagen climate
summit in 2009 and is a sitting
member of the UK parliamentThe anarchy of negotiation
Interview: Ed MilibandSTEFFEN
KUGLER- PO
OL/GETTY^ IMAGESThere are important lessons to be learned from previous UN climate
meetings. Ed Miliband discusses his time at the failed COP15 summitRICHARD
TOWNSH
EN
D^ PHOTOGRAP
HY“ This matters hugely to
so many countries and
you’re trying to do a
really difficult thing”
There were tense negotiations
between world leaders at COP
in Copenhagen in 2009