What it means to have a year without climate diplomacy

The two most important locations for international climate diplomacy — this year and last —have both been turned into field hospitals.

In Glasgow, it’s the giant Scottish Event Campus that’s now lined with beds. Until last week that venue was set to host the United Nations annual climate talks in November; the coronavirus has forced a delay of the conference, known as COP26, until 2021. In Madrid, it’s the airport-sized Ifema fairground that now looks more like a scene from 1918 Spanish flu than the site of last year’s COP25, which drew over 26,000 people with a carnival-like atmosphere that included Harrison Ford and Greta Thunberg.

Just like everyone else, climate diplomats have replaced physical gatherings with online video meetings. But, as you’ve probably discovered firsthand, working from home is not the same. There are more distractions. Things move more slowly, even by the slow standards of climate diplomacy. And, as it turns out, human touch counts.