{"id":7887,"date":"2021-04-29T08:16:26","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T08:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7887"},"modified":"2021-04-29T08:16:26","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T08:16:26","slug":"just-about-coping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2021\/04\/29\/just-about-coping\/","title":{"rendered":"Just about COPing"},"content":{"rendered":"

A whole bunch of educational organisations are taking the Glasgow meeting of COP26 seriously by either planning to be there to encourage delegates, by producing resources for schools, or holding webinars \u2013 or all three. \u00a0This follows government calls<\/a> for \"groups to bring the climate summit to life\". \u00a0Just how they think their presence and\u00a0activity will make a difference is unclear. \u00a0For many, it seems likely that Glasgow is just a place to be seen and a badge of honour to be worn. \u00a0The same applies in spades to the environmental NGOs who will attend in their multitudes. \u00a0\u00a0The most likely outcomes of any educational activity are likely to be in the always-amorphous awakening of awareness \/ consciousness \/ interest \/ ... . \u00a0The challenge for educators lies in building on this, particularly working with individual schools, local authority and academy chains.<\/p>\n

I find it hard to believe that their presence will achieve much even indirectly by way of carbon reduction. \u00a0The solid outcomes of the Paris Agreement wasn't because Greenpeace \/ WWF \/ etc were there; indeed, the success of Paris (limited though it was) was determined long before the event started through the understandings that were agreed in advance by big government beasts. \u00a0Attempts to do the same for COP26 are happening now, with John Kerry's wooing of China the other week being a prime example (and followed by a virtual summit on April 22nd\/23rd hosted by the Americans). \u00a0At this meeting our prime minister\u00a0said: \"It's vital for all of us to show that this is not all about some expensive, politically correct, green act of bunny hugging. \u00a0What I'm driving at is this is about growth and jobs<\/em>.\" \u00a0This was meant to reassure voters (who mostly weren't listening) and business (who assuredly were) \u00a0that the UK government was not surrendering to a XR-style, sacrifice of living standards, hope and aspiration. \u00a0Given that the costs of the transition to net-zero-carbon will be huge, and will have to be shared by tax-payers and the private sector, this was an attempt to reassure that it will be worth it. \u00a0Expect more of this around the G7 meeting in June.<\/p>\n

So far, judging by what they failed to bring to the table at the virtual summit, China, Russia and India (serious emitters all) are going to be hard to get on side. \u00a0Getting China to shift the date of their net-zero carbon goal forwards is widely seen as a key outcome as it would imply more of a hurry to shift away from coal and emissions. \u00a0If they do: happiness; if they don't: misery. \u00a0No amount of educational resources eagerly taken up by schools will temper that reality.<\/p>\n

The UK government, meanwhile, is taking the COP \u00fcber-seriously with a lot of investment of time, money, and energy. \u00a0It's soft power post-Brexit, Green Britain on the world stage of course \u2013 and spending megabucks in the SNP heartland. \u00a0What's not to like? \u00a0If only the DfE<\/a> had got the memo it might have encouraged schools to get more involved.<\/p>\n

I'll not be COPing in Glasgow. \u00a0But I am hoping that China can be persuaded to play ball. \u00a0It could do with some good publicity so maybe it will. \u00a0However, the fact that\u00a0Chinese state-owned energy companies have recently built four coal power plants in the EU's backyard (Bosnia Herzegovina) since 2010, and have a further four planned, suggests that it won't be in a hurry to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A whole bunch of educational organisations are taking the Glasgow meeting of COP26 seriously by either planning to be there to encourage delegates, by producing resources for schools, or holding webinars \u2013 or all three. \u00a0This follows government calls for...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}