The steps world leaders have taken towards addressing the climate emergency that threatens the future of some of the world’s poorest communities are like pouring a glass of water on a raging house fire. But a leading campaigner remains hopeful that environmental justice will be achieved

At the start of COP26, the Pope called for world leaders “to act urgently, courageously and responsibly”. With blunt honesty, Francis shared what is at stake as our sisters and brothers, and every member of God’s Creation around the world, suffer from the ecological crisis and the climate emergency. “The lives of countless people, particularly those who are most vulnerable, have experienced increasingly frequent and devastating effects,” he said. “At the same time, we have come to ­realise that it also involves a crisis of children’s rights and that, in the near future, environmental migrants will be more numerous than refugees from war and conflicts.”

The summit concluded last week, and regretfully, world leaders have again fallen short of Pope Francis’ and many others’ hopes for what would emerge. More frequent meetings and a shy commitment to phase out fossil fuels are steps forward. But they are akin to pouring a glass of water on a raging house fire. The COP26 agreement doesn’t do enough to combat the climate crisis, and the existing national climate plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, come nowhere close to addressing the climate emergency we’re already experiencing. We are on a trajectory that will soon blow up the threshold of a 1.5C increase, which scientists have warned would be catastrophic on various fronts. Come next year, new coal mines, oil pipelines and gas terminals will still be constructed. Countries will still be planning on burning too many fossil fuels for decades to come, the very fossil fuels that are the main cause of this climate emergency, and of eight million deaths annually. It’s simply outrageous. It’s shameful that in the UK, for example, there is still talk about a new coal mine in Cumbria, and the Government continues to support the expansion of oil drilling in the North Sea. It’s a slap in the face of the people in poor countries who are being ravaged by the climate crisis.