JCAM 2021 13 Annual Review Looking at all these groups and having participated in the usual rhetoric seen from previous meetings as countries over five hours protest march I sensed ineffable hope in my prepared to launch an adaptation goal and adopt strategies heart. This was clearly not passive hope but the kind of hope for achieving such a goal. A lot was achieved at the COP26. that is divine and is created from committed action for We felt hopeful and encouraged when the final text justice. Supported by the company of faith leaders, other committed countries to “accelerating efforts towards the Jesuits, our lay collaborators, countless men and women of phase-down of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil faith and even none, I felt imbued with the hope that we fuel subsidies…” We felt encouraged as well when could achieve climate justice against all the odds. Those negotiators finally reached common rules on carbon who turned out for the march reminded me once again that markets and when the United States and China issued a I am not alone, that I am part of a movement deeper and declaration to collaborate on climate action this decade. wider than I can ever know and that movement is fuelled Some good progress has been made but we still have a long not by hate, selfishness and greed, but by love for humanity, way to go. While the head of the United Nations, António for people suffering miles away with countries in between Guterres, described the climate summit in hopeful terms as us and for every creature. That is the love that will win the “building blocks for progress”, in their tweet a week after revolution and that same collective also encouraged me as a the COP26, Fridays for Future described the summit as Jesuit to continue the fight for and with the poor and “infuriating and disappointing”. The Fridays for Future and marginalised. many others had many reasons for their disappointment. A Mix of Hope and Desolation: The Inconsistencies of the For example, the delegations of India and China pushed for Rich and Powerful watered down language on coal to change from "phase out" There was every hope that COP26 would go beyond the to "phase down" in the draft deal agreed in Glasgow and they got away with it. Did China and India keep in mind the About 100,000 people marched in Glasgow to demand more action on the climate crisis, among them Jesuits. © Fr. Charles Chilufya, SJ