Thread by @althecat

A @NYtimes Columnist is concerned that America’s FP is being mismanaged - a general conclusion with which I concur. But his analysis is excessively simplistic and leaves out both Ethiopia and Climate Change, and therefore also shallow.

nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opi…

@nytimes Biden is about to arrive in Scotland - and in his delegation are (as I understand it) Al Gore, Barack Obama, John Kerry and most probably Hillary Clinton - credited by some with saving Paris in 2009 also as she is already in the UK it seems.

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1452193949129580550?s=20

According to reports they plan to arrive by motorcade with the M8 Motorway from Edinburgh to Glasgow being temporarily closed to enable it.

If they all do turn up every democratic Presidential Nominee since 2000 will be there. An unprecedented display of commitment.

The World Leaders Summit which begins on Mon November 1st is expected to have 120 world leaders in attendance. It is almost certainly the largest gathering of world leaders ever. While UNGAs have lots of leaders in attendance - they come and go over a 10-14 day period.

#COP26 (Jointly hosted by the UK/Scotland & Italy) can have a lot of superlatives ascribed to it:
- its eyewatering cost 300 million GBP.
- the numbers attending are expected to top 30-40,000 over the two weeks.
- & in security terms it is also the largest policing UK op. ever.

Expectations are high and will likely only be partially met. But everything massive has to begin somewhere, and in a sense COP26 is the kick off to the operational phase of cooperative efforts to address the greatest threat to humanity in recorded history.

@COP26's focus is till 2030 (twice as long as WWII, half as long as the Afghanistan War) - but that is only step one.

Realistically the great global collaboration which is now in its starting gates is set to last 50 years or more, though Govt's struggle with such timelines.

In transformational terms, war metaphors are often used to help conceptualise the expected pace of the change which will be needed to achieve the 1.5 degrees and at least under 2 degrees warming.

A 10-30 year period of change, during which we as a planet will need to learn to share, work together, and hopefully along the way lose our taste for armed conflict.

All said and done, its a mighty daunting prospect. Albeit one which is also very hopeful.

And returning to the @NYTimes column referenced in the OP - a prospect which dwarfs even the most serious and immediate current security concerns on global leaders & global governance (UN, G7, G20) plates.

We can literally only achieve this if we can become a team of 8 billion.

/ENDS

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