Thread by @_richardblack

THREAD: The UK government says it wants a successful #COP26. Great. But from the government’s position, the word ‘success’ has two distinct meanings

In one, #COP26 is a genuine success, making a meaningful contribution to tackling climate change. In the other, it isn’t a genuine success, but enough happens to allow Boris Johnson to claim that it is

Why flag this now? Because if Week 1 at #COP26 was about one thing, it was about news management. And there is doubtless a lot more to come

Each day saw one or more announcements of ‘real-world’ agreements between governments, orchestrated by the UK Presidency, that claimed to accelerate one particular element of decarbonisation: coal phase-out, an end to fossil fuel finance abroad, an end to deforestation, and so on

And by the end of the week we had not one, not two, but three analyses showing how the sum total of these deals, plus a few governments’ announcements of new targets, was closing the gap to delivering the #ParisAgreement’s temperature goals

1.9°C is now within reach… data.climateresource.com.au/ndc/20211103-C… ...…oh wait - a day later, it’s 1.8°C… iea.org/commentaries/c… a day after that, pledges are meaningfully closing the 2030 emissions gap energy-transitions.org/speech-by-lord…

In Downing St one senses the PM’s closing speeches are already being written

‘We set out to deliver a summit that kept 1.5°C alive (cites the IEA and other reports) and we did that. We promised progress on four key areas of coal, cash, cars and trees, and we did that too (enumerates deals). (Add something on methane).’

For evidence that this is where it’s heading, look no further than @shippersunbound’s @sundaytimes column yesterday thetimes.co.uk/article/johnso…

‘More than 40 countries made commitments for the first time to phase out coal power,’ Tim relates. ‘The UN warned before the summit that [temperatures] are set to rise to 2.7C. By the end of the week, experts suggested the agreements reached would lower this to 1.8C’

...both claims that turn up in other UK papers too and which No10 would dearly love to be true… but aren’t, as anyone who’s looked will find. @PatrickGaley of @AFP has this thread on the realities behind the extravagant forests and coal phase-out claims

https://twitter.com/patrickgaley/status/1456603743651254277

…@PiersForster brings reality to the methane pledge

https://twitter.com/piersforster/status/1457347193388650499

, while in the @guardian, @fionaharvey relates how the PR machine hit turbo-boost on the coal announcement theguardian.com/environment/ng…

…and there's much more of the same, eg unclimatesummit.org/fact-checking-…

Crucially, @shippersunbound confuses pledges with commitments and policies. Yes, the pledges made by governments might be enough – might, because there are many other caveats – to make 1.8°C feasible

But pledges don’t cut emissions – policies do. And on the basis of announced policies, we’re still heading for something like the 2.7°C that pertained coming into #COP26, with governments' formal submissions showing emissions rising over this decade unfccc.int/sites/default/…

Each of the above analyses is heavily caveated – the @IEA noting that to get anywhere near 1.8°C, all pledges need to be implemented ‘in full and on time’, and that even if that happens we’re still not en route to 1.5°C. But caveats don't always make it through the comms chain

So no – 40 countries did not make commitments for the first time to phase out coal power; and no credible expert would suggest the deals this week take the world from a 2.7°C trajectory to 1.8°C. A No10 official might say an expert said that, but that's a different matter

But you can see how already the Johnson PR machine has got the elements in place for proclaiming #COP26 a stunning success

And even if Week 2 turns into a dog’s breakfast he’ll be able to do it – provided he talks, as No10 usually does, to political journalists who don’t ask any independent experts whether No10 'forgot' to mention any inconvenient facts or caveats

Why does this matter? Well, because #COP26 should be seen for whatever it is. If it really is a success, great. But if fails on certain elements, and especially if it fails overall, that needs to be clear also. No-one gains from obscuring its weaknesses – except the UK government

None of the sector deals outlined above is worthless. All may yet result in some added emissions-cutting

But given the lamentable history of agreements to cut deforestation, the fact that some nations in the coal deal have already distanced themselves from it, and the utter lack of clarity in all of these deals about delivery, we can’t bet on it

Do governments spin the outcomes of UN summits? You bet. At Copenhagen in 2009 Barack Obama proclaimed, from his ‘plane heading home, that there had been a deal. There hadn’t; but large chunks of the global media reported that there had been, because he said so

I guess it boils down to one question: when we come to the summit’s conclusion, do media organisations choose to headline what it’s achieved, or what Boris Johnson says it’s achieved?

One hopes they’ll be the same thing. But given the extent of exaggeration and obfuscation in week one, we can’t assume they will be. And then there’ll be a choice about how best to serve one’s viewers, listeners and readers