John Prescott, Official Portrait, 1997 (The National Archives 1999)
Written by Eme Dean-Lewis, PhD student with SCENARIO DTP, University of Reading
“After a final round of hard bargaining, we reached agreement as dawn approached. We just kept going, 48 hours without sleep, finding compromise and wearing down opposition. But we got there in the end. You could call it ‘diplomacy by exhaustion’” (Prescott 2024).
So wrote John Prescott in the programme notes for the inaugural production of the play Kyoto (Murphy and Robertson 2024) performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC’s) Swan Theatre earlier this year (see box 1).
John, later Lord, Prescott was the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Deputy Prime Minister from 1997-2010. He was less than nine months into that role when he became a leading member of the European Union’s (EU’s) negotiating team at COP3 in Kyoto, Japan. COP3 was the third meeting of the ‘Council of Parties’, or countries, who are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
In the play, Prescott is portrayed as a skilful and experienced negotiator. He takes on the challenge of finding a path to the agreement we now know as the Kyoto Protocol. Focused on results and ready to commit significant UK contributions to emissions reduction, he draws on his seafaring, trade union background and experience as a Member of the UK Parliament. All is done with warmth and humour, for example his line ‘First rule of negotiation: find out the number for catering’ (Murphy and Robertson 2024).
Today, after the news of John Prescott’s passing, the BBC describe him as a ‘Kyoto deal broker’ (BBC News 2024). ABC news hail him as a ‘working class hero’ and highlight that ‘one of his proudest achievements was working with then-U.S. Vice President Al Gore on the landmark Kyoto Protocol’ (ABC News 2024). Al Gore (2024) elaborates on this and also refers to later work Prescott did at COP15 in Copenhagen, writing that he ‘fought like hell to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol and was an unwavering champion of climate action for decades to come’. The Guardian (2024) confirms Prescott was ‘widely credited for pulling fractious national representatives together… [to agree] … a climate deal at Kyoto that put social justice at its very heart’. These reports, along with others, confirm that Murphy and Robertson’s portrayal of Prescott as a passionate, larger-than-life politician dedicated to climate action is accurate.
| Box 1: The play Kyoto by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson (2024)
The play Kyoto tells the story of events in the 1990s leading up to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol on 11 December 1997. During this period, it becomes increasingly clear from scientific analysis that there is human influence on climate change. The play focuses on the actions of Don Pearlman, an oil lobbyist, and Raúl Estrada-Oyuela, a diplomat. Pearlman acts on behalf of a group called the ‘Seven Sisters’ who represent the seven major oil companies at that time. Negotiators from the United States, European Union and several developed nations are characters in the play. There’s also a diplomat from Kiribati, a Pacific Island. That diplomat represents members of the Alliance of Small Island States which are particularly vulnerable to climate change from rising sea levels and other impacts. The production of Kyoto is a collaboration between the RSC and Good Chance. It was first performed in June 2024 in Stratford-upon-Avon and transfers to London in January 2025 (RSC 2024). |
“As of 2022, global fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes account for approximately 90% of [global greenhouse gas] emissions, whereas land-use change, primarily deforestation, accounts for approximately 10%.” (Ripple et al. 2024)
The play Kyoto’s depiction of the oil industry acting to disrupt acknowledgement of human-caused climate change and defer global action to deal with it is also accurate.
While John Prescott’s character plays an important role in Act Two of Kyoto, the main storyline is the years of work by American lawyer Don Pearlman to delay any action to tackle climate change and the determination of Argentinian diplomat Raúl Estrada-Oyuela for the world to address global warming. Estrada-Oyuela was ‘chairman of the Committee of the Whole of the Kyoto Conference’ (CIEL 2006) and so officiated the decision-making at COP3. He is described as ‘a grandmaster of diplomacy and the godfather of Kyoto’ (CIEL 2006) and shown in this way in the play.
Pearlman speaks for the major global oil companies, who are referred to as the Seven Sisters (Murphy and Robertson 2024). Following mergers and acquisitions in the fossil fuel market since 1997, these seven, listed here in brackets, have consolidated into four companies: BP (Anglo-Iranian), Chevron (Standard Oil of California, Gulf Oil and Texaco), ExxonMobil (Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of New York) and Shell (Royal Dutch Shell).
As the quote above from Ripple et al (2024) confirms, fossil fuels account for roughly ninety percent of the emissions which result in human-caused, also referred to as anthropogenic, climate change. Although Kyoto is a dramatisation of the story leading to the unanimous agreement of the Kyoto Protocol, major oil companies’ knowledge that fossil fuels are the main cause of global warming and their deliberate obstruction of that being understood and addressed over many decades was, and continues to be, real.
“We found that decades ago, Exxon conducted cutting-edge climate research and then worked at the forefront of climate denial, manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that its own scientists had confirmed.” (Bannerjee et al. 2015)
Supran et al. (2023) examined ExxonMobil’s internal climate projections, tracing data from Exxon between 1977 and 2003. They confirm the stark conclusions of Pulitzer Prize-nominated investigative journalism from Bannerjee et al. (2015) quoted above. Supran et al. (2023) found that Exxon’s analysis fifty years ago indicated the extent of the environmental impact of its products by 2050. While most Exxon climate scientists acknowledged this internally, the company’s external messaging was designed to question the validity of climate change.
“How do you get 150 countries to agree, when everyone has a veto?” (Prescott 2024)
Prescott opens his programme notes for Kyoto with these words. In the Climate Action Studio, observing the complexity of negotiations in Baku, we researchers have several times asked ourselves this same question. For the, now, 193 countries, reaching unanimous agreement on anything is a monumental task. The climate action which has been settled upon and delivered over the last three decades seems consistently slower and less ambitious than science indicates is necessary. Nonetheless, the fact that progress has been made is a cause for optimism.
Reflecting on the difficulty of reaching agreement during COPs, we researchers also acknowledge the remarkable achievements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s six Assessment Reports (ARs) are written and peer-reviewed by hundreds of climate scientists around the world, drawing on all available published research. Before publication, the text, including recommendations and the succinct summary for policymakers (IPCC 2022), is reviewed by the governments of each party to the UNFCCC. These IPCC ARs provide the scientific bedrock upon which the political agreements in Kyoto, Copenhagen and Paris were made. The latest, AR6, straightforwardly confirms that ‘Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming’ (IPCC 2023). The science is clear; now it’s time for COP to take action.
“You’ve just got to keep walking and talking.” (Murphy and Robertson 2024)
John Prescott was known for coining this phrase at COP3 which indicates his tenacity when complex discussions get stuck and his determination to use every minute productively. There have been many hours of negotiation this month in Baku, and years of preparation. Nevertheless, discussions on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) have not yet resulted in the draft text stating a figure for the ‘quantum’, or amount, of money that developed countries will commit to giving developing countries as climate finance. Developing nations request the quantum to be $1.0-1.3 trillion per year for the next 10 years (Carbon Brief 2024). Developed nations view the quantum as an increase from the current goal of $100 billion per year which was reached for the first time in 2022. There is a trillion-dollar gap. Maybe they are missing a negotiator with John Prescot’s straight talking, clarity of thought and good humour. Clearly, for an ambitious quantum to be included in the final COP29 text, all nations need to ‘keep walking and talking’ in the next few days.
“The fight to save the planet is never over. But it’s a fight we cannot afford to lose” (Prescott 2024).
How true, John Prescott. Thank you, for your considerable contributions to resolving the climate crisis. Your passion and expertise will be greatly missed. However, your wise words remain. They are a reminder that we must not fail our planet and all that live and grow here, both now and in the future. We must keep working to tackle climate change.
References
ABC News, 2024: Ex-UK Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is hailed as a working-class hero after his death at 86. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/former-uk-deputy-prime-minister-john-prescott-dies-116085513 (Accessed November 22, 2024).
Bannerjee, N., L. Song, D. Hasemyer, and J. H. Cushman Jr., 2015: Exxon: The road not taken. Inside Climate News,. https://perma.cc/99YY-2MWV (Accessed November 22, 2024).
BBC News, 2024: Seven memorable moments in the life of Labour’s John Prescott – BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq8v1q2xn1lo (Accessed November 22, 2024).
Carbon Brief, 2024: COP29: What is the ‘new collective quantified goal’ on climate finance? – Carbon Brief. https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop29-what-is-the-new-collective-quantified-goal-on-climate-finance/ (Accessed November 5, 2024).
CIEL, 2006: 2006 International Environmental Law Award Recipient – Raúl Estrada-Oyuela. Center for International Environmental Law,. https://www.ciel.org/about-us/2006-international-environmental-law-award-recipient-raul-estrada-oyuela/ (Accessed November 22, 2024).
Gore, A., 2024: Statement by Former Vice President Al Gore on the Passing of John Prescott —. https://algore.com/news/statement-by-former-vice-president-al-gore-on-the-passing-of-john-prescott (Accessed November 23, 2024).
IPCC, 2022: AR6 Synthesis Report: Summary for Policymakers Headline Statements. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/resources/spm-headline-statements/ (Accessed March 21, 2023).
——, 2023: AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ (Accessed November 17, 2024).
Murphy, J., and J. Robertson, 2024: Kyoto (play). ISBN 9780571392490
Prescott, J., 2024: Diplomacy by Exhaustion. Royal Shakespeare Company Programme notes, August 2024,.
Ripple, W. J., and Coauthors, 2024: The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth. Bioscience, 0, 1–13, https://doi.org/10.1093/BIOSCI/BIAE087.
RSC, 2024: Kyoto, London production. Royal Shakespeare Company,. https://www.rsc.org.uk/kyoto/ (Accessed November 22, 2024).
Supran, G., S. Rahmstorf, and N. Oreskes, 2023: Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections. Science (1979), 379, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abk0063.
The Guardian, 2024: John Prescott, a ‘critical force’ in climate policy, will be missed at Cop29. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/nov/21/john-prescott-climate-policy-kyoto-protocol-copenhagen (Accessed November 23, 2024).
The National Archives, 1999: Official Portrait John Prescott. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. Crown copyright (https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/19991009022451/http://www.detr.gov.uk:80/thisis/4.htm),
