Why the COP26 climate summit will be both crucial and disappointing

“THE RAIN it raineth every day,” Feste tells the audience at the end of “Twelfth Night”. And the COP it COPpeth every year. Since 1995 the countries bound by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have missed only one conference of the parties—when the pandemic struck in 2020. These COPs can produce action plans (Bali, 2007), mandates (Berlin, 1995), protocols (Kyoto, 1997), platforms (Durban, 2011), acrimonious breakdowns (Copenhagen, 2009) and agreements (Paris, 2015). But the rise in the atmosphere’s greenhouse-gas content and the associated warming of the climate continues in spite of them—even when, as so often, they are hyped as the world’s last chance.