REPORTING FROM COP26: CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE COMMONWEALTH
REFLECTIONS ON THE COP26 GLOBE LEGISLATORS SUMMIT: CPA SMALL BRANCHES VICE-CHAIRPERSON AND ISLE OF MAN SPEAKER “If you think you’re too little to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito in the room” - Dalai Lama. I was proud to represent the CPA Small Branches at the COP26 GLOBE Legislators Summit in Edinburgh, Scotland in November 2021. The implications of climate change are probably better understood by smaller branches: we are nearer to citizens, closer to problems, and can grasp issues in a holistic way that challenges larger governments. Our size is our biggest advantage to understanding problems, and our biggest constraint to solving them. Out of these constraints comes innovation and collaboration, something we smaller branches know a lot about from necessity. The issues raised at the Summit in Edinburgh were expected, varying degrees of difficult trade-offs, time-consuming and expensive issues, transcending election cycles and party lines. We gathered to accelerate climate action and delivery of a green, fair and resilient global recovery, whilst attempting to retain and strengthen democratic integrity, securing consent and energising whole-of-society public engagement for sustained delivery. Worthy goals that are difficult to deliver. However, as the Speaker of The Maldives, Hon. Mohamed Nashid, said at the conference: “Pessimism achieves nothing, determination is needed.” He spoke as a Parliamentarian of one of the Commonwealth’s smaller states for which the battle against
climate change is a battle for the very survival of their country. Many are facing rising sea levels, fierce floods, or drought and wildfires. It was so important, therefore, that the voice of the CPA Small Branches was heard as the desperate principal victims of climate change in all of its forms. So what practical takeaways can I share with you, my parliamentary colleagues, about tackling this issue? First and foremost, governments should be encouraged to make timely decisions in the right direction, with refinements later on. It is accepted that action in an emergency will not be perfect, but outcome-based action now is better than perfect action later. Policy must transcend political changings of the guard. International agreements need translating into domestic legislation. Legislation is key as it represents the will of Parliament and is enforceable in the courts. Carbon budgets need to be included in national plans. Legislation is a great lever for citizens to be involved: in shaping the law, ensuring its enforcement, challenging us all to do better, supported by a democratic mandate to deliver. We heard from judges, too, that seeking timely judicial feedback and building it into post-legislative reviews was an invaluable tool in constantly refining legislation. Parliamentary Committees are a valuable tool for idea collection, assessment and recommendation of ideas to government. There is scope to present ideas and solutions from other jurisdictions that may not have reached the ears of Ministers. From a scrutiny perspective, it was astonishing to learn that worldwide fossil fuel subsidies amount to US$11m per minute. We should ask whether policies are helping or hindering the situation. As was said: “Offsets, capture, sequestration and storage are not solutions. They represent a shift from denial to delusion.” There were many lessons from distinguished academics calling for the right balance between adaptation and mitigation, and how ideally we need to move from making green rules to green markets. I am a chartered accountant by trade, so it’s important to recognise that measurement matters. We measure what matters, it signifies our interest and intent. Legislating for carbon into budgets, into annually reported targets, and ensuring auditing and compilation to a common reporting standard are all pivotal parts of parliamentary
Hon. Juan Watterson, SHK is the CPA Small Branches Vice-Chairperson and the Speaker of the House of Keys at the Parliament of the Isle of Man (Tynwald).
396 | The Parliamentarian | 2021: Issue Four | 100 years of publishing
