Informal dispatches from COP 26

DAY 5 — Talk and Action in Glasgow

By Thomas Vonier
FAIA RIBA
Immediate Past President, International Union of Architects
Former President, American Institute of Architects

---

For someone who spends so much time decrying “talk,” climate activist Greta Thunberg seems to do her share. She writes, too, sending Tweets to her five million followers. Here’s one from yesterday:

“COP26 has been named the most excluding COP ever. This is no longer a climate conference. This is a Global North greenwash festival. A two-week celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah.”

This terminology—dividing the “global north” from the “global south”—is much in evidence here. Groups are pressing the “global north” to recognize that the “global south” bears inequitable burdens from environmental damage. They are also pressing the haves (mostly north of the Equator) to spend more to help the have-nots (mostly to the south).

Ideas of social justice and equity are firmly embedded in these climate discussions. So are the words “blah blah blah” and the assertion that “it’s all talk”—at least among those on the margins of the formal United Nations climate negotiations and the Blue Zone seminars and expositions.

But there’s more than talk going on here: stronger national and international steps toward methane reduction; national moratoriums on oil-drilling; state-backed actions to halt deforestation; and national programs to reduce waste and restore green space.

These are good steps, hopeful, and real.

---

Tom is sending DesignIntelligence daily dispatches from COP 26 and offering his seasoned insights and observations along the way.