Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 24 November 2021 - Strasbourg

Outcome of the COP26 in Glasgow (debate)

  Petros Kokkalis (The Left). – Mr President, politics is the art of the visible. It is still possible to arrest our race towards extinction. In Glasgow, the Paris Agreement rulebook was finalised, and now the framework for international cooperation for climate action is finally operational.

In Glasgow, all nations finally submitted to the veracity and the ferocity of the IPCC science and committed to the 1.5-degree goal and not the inferno of well below two degrees. In Glasgow, the ambition ratchet mechanism brought in is leading to 2.2 degrees, well down from the three parties’ 5-degree tragic trajectory, but not nearly good enough to ensure global public health and very catastrophic socio-economic impacts. In Glasgow, the parties therefore committed to returning in 2022 with greater ambition and most importantly, credible policy pathways to 1.5 degrees.

In this regard, the EU stood as a beacon. Finally and fundamentally, developed nations recognise their liability for adaptation and for loss and damage in the Global South. And this road to climate justice dictates that radical restructuring of the international financial is needed in order to unlock the trillions required and including the end of fossil fuel subsidies.

Optimism is the starting point of victory, but it can only be the result of unyielding struggle in every parliament, in every council, in every board, in every union, in every home, in the streets, every day.