“We are fighting for a future that is not riddled with anxiety and fear that another Haiyan might come anytime”, Marinel Ubaido, a survivor of super typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in November 2013, said at the final panel of COP26 in Glasgow last month. “We do not deserve to live in fear. We deserve a hopeful future. We demand urgent action.”
Ubaido, along with the majority of those who have contributed the least to the climate crisis but suffer the most, was ultimately ignored by the wealthiest countries who dictated the parameters of the conference.
The power imbalance at the root of COP26’s failures could be seen in the mundane practicalities of attending the conference itself. Many delegates from the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis were not even present at the conference. Small island states stressed that without vaccination, their delegations could not attend. Whilst those on the frontlines of the crisis were excluded, at least 503 fossil fuel lobbyists for some of the world's biggest polluting oil and gas giants were granted access to the negotiations.
