Was COP a flop?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

COP26 is now over, but was it a flop? Even Alok Sharma, the President of COP26, apologised on the last day for 'the way this process has unfolded', as he teared up when announcing the final agreement to phase down, rather than phase out, coal. On this episode, Cindy Yu talks to Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman about the lasting legacy of COP26.

For Fraser, the summit was a mixed bag: 'I don't think that anybody is going to talk, in future years, about the "Glasgow declaration". But there are... some moves forward'. And Isabel points out the disappointment to Boris Johnson, for his own personal legacy: 'He then got to the end of the summit saying, well we've made a start, which is not something you're going to have on your legacy. The authorised biography of Boris Johnson is not going to [say] "well, we've made a start".'

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is sponsored by Canacord Genuity Wealth Management, award-winning wealth managers who go above and beyond to support and guide you.
0:09.2	Visit can-dowealth.com to start building your wealth with confidence.
0:16.5	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.
0:21.2	I'm Cindy Yu and I'm joined by Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson.
0:25.1	So, after 40,000 delegates flew from around the world to Glasgow and almost as many Nicholas Sturgeon selfies,
0:31.2	the COP 26 summit has ended. But was it a flop?
0:35.1	Here's how the cop president, Alok Sharma, summed it up himself yesterday.
0:38.5	May I just say to all delegates, I apologise for the way this process has unfolded.
0:47.6	And I'm deeply sorry.
0:51.8	I also understand the deep disappointment.
0:56.5	But I think as you have noted, it's also sound like a ringing endorsement of his work of the last two weeks.
1:19.0	No, and the way in which this unfolded was that there had been draft wording that was going to the final negotiations that evening on Sunday, on
1:30.3	Saturday evening, sorry. And then at the very last minute, India and China were holding out
1:36.1	against this, basically threatening to detonate this big agreement, saying the wording on coal
1:41.5	had to be changed from phase out to phase down.
1:47.1	And this was seen by a lot of countries as a betrayal or a disappointment,
1:52.7	but it was the only way that an agreement was going to go ahead, basically.
1:57.4	What was really interesting was after his moment of emotion, Alok Sharma then presumably was allowed to have some sleep and then did the morning broadcast round where he was much keener on being upbeat about the achievements of this summit, which would suggest that number 10, who put out
2:19.9	a press release shortly after his crying incident with the Prime Minister hailing, a historic
2:25.5	achievement and a historic agreement to save the world, the number 10 were a little bit unhappy
2:30.8	with the way in which Sharma had closed the summit, suggesting that it had
2:34.7	ended in disappointment. His line was to us on Times Radio. I was presenting in the morning,
	...

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