The COP26 Experience Photo by Dean Calma/ieae via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Healthy Skepticism and Abiding Faith— Memorable Moments and a Call to Action by Dr. Lisa Graumlich
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am a climate scientist and a person of deep faith. For most of my life, my life as a professor and my life as an Episcopalian did not overlap. All that has changed. As the climate emergency became more urgent, I found ways to bring my scientific expertise into Saint Mark’s Creation Care Ministry. However, as someone who built her career on “thinking globally,” I understand that our local efforts to address climate change need to be combined by international efforts at the highest levels. That’s why I was thrilled when I was appointed to the Presiding Bishop’s delegation to the 26th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP26), widely known simply as the Glasgow Climate Conference.
COP26 sought to forge agreement among the countries of world to set voluntary goals aimed at limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This would mitigate the most catastrophic effects of warming temperatures, including rising sea levels, more frequent and extreme droughts, storms and wildfires. As one of 24 members of Presiding Bishop’s delegation, I participated virtually in the Conference, watching leaders state their cases in plenary sessions, observing real time negotiations, and participating in civil society events in which people from around the world shared knowledge about local impacts of climate change and discussed strategies to adapt to and mitigate those changes.
I’ve been to my share of scientific conferences. Never have I been so moved and motivated by what I saw at COP26. HOW IT STARTED: AN INSPIRING OPENING The opening plenaries on November 6 were inspiring, especially hearing the voices of Indigenous youth. There were so many: on the opening day, Ms. Elizabeth Wathui of Kenya described the devastation of drought on the people of Kenya, citing a figure of 2 million people currently facing climate-related starvation. By 2050, climate impacts are expected to displace 86 million people in SubSaharan Africa.
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