Forgive me for not jumping with joy at the outcome of COP27 that recently concluded in Egypt but, if we’re being really honest, were we expecting anything different? International entities meeting in exotic locations courtesy of big corporate sponsorships. And what the rest of the world receives at the end of the day is yet another illustration of humanity’s failure to act.
Am I being too harsh or is there something to celebrate? Let’s find out in this week’s The Global Tiller as we comb through COP27.
This year’s climate conference gathered countries from across the world to meet in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt and carry on their talks on dealing with climate change — an attempt that has been made 26 times before as well. At the end of the two weeks of this conference, here are the key outcomes:
Developing countries have succeeded in reaching an agreement to set up a 'loss and damage' fund through which the world’s biggest polluters can pay for poorer countries at the forefront of climate catastrophes to carry out rescue and rebuilding efforts.
The right to a clean healthy and sustainable environment was also included in the agreement, an achievement likely made possible due to the prominent role played by medical professionals linking global heating to serious health consequences.
The Paris Accord, or COP21, was hailed for its landmark agreement on the 1.5ºC temperature goal. This year, some countries tried unsuccessfully to renege on the goal. What they did succeed on was in taking out the resolution to peak emissions by 2025.
The final agreement also contains a provision to boost "low-emissions energy", which could mean wind, solar or nuclear, but it could also be interpreted to mean gas, which emits less than coal but is still a major fossil fuel.
The need to reform multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, came up during COP27 as countries blame it for failing to align its spending to climate goals. While there has been no concrete plan set in motion, COP27 is celebrating the demand itself as a big achievement.
India did not succeed in including the "phasing down of all fossil fuels" in the final agreement. The current wording stays the same as last year’s resolution to phase down the use of coal (in itself considered a remarkable achievement).
In 2020, rich countries promised to pay $100 billion to poor countries to build climate resistance and, last year, there were calls to double the pledge amount. However, this year, some countries tried to remove the promise entirely. They didn’t succeed but considering no payment has been made so far, the pledge remains on paper only.
There was also resistance to the inclusion of the findings of the latest IPCC report in the COP27 agreement but, eventually, the final wordings include the dire warning: the climate does not warm in a gradual and linear fashion, but that we risk tripping feedback loops that will lead to rapidly escalating effects. These include the heating of the Amazon, which could turn the rainforest to savannah, transforming it from a carbon sink to a carbon source, and the melting of permafrost that releases the powerful greenhouse gas methane.
If newspaper headlines are anything to go by, the agreement on the loss and damage fund is being hailed as the biggest achievement of this conference. If it does amount to something, perhaps they’d be right in celebrating. But there’s a lot more that needs to be done.
In March 2023, the committee set up to chalk out the details will decide how the fund will be set up. It will have to figure out how the finance will be provided and where will the money come from. The idea of paying loss and damage to poor countries suffering from climate change has long been resisted by high-income countries, merely because they don’t want to be held legally liable. Even after reluctantly agreeing, the US insists that the fund will focus on what can be done now. There will be no acknowledgment of compensation or liability or, God forbid, reparations.
And that’s all we need to know before we pin all our hopes on climate conferences. The negotiators are not gathering with the intention of doing what is right, but focusing on how to get the best deal out of the misery they caused. The rich countries are nowhere near accepting their role and culpability in creating this mess so, excuse me, while I remain skeptic. To me, these 'achievements' seem to be nothing more than phrases COP participants will be arguing over next year in Dubai.
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
Dig Deeper
Like any institution that was formed 30 years ago, COP needs an upgrade. There are growing demands for it but no one seems to know what it should look like.
…and now what?
Seriously, now what? It seems harder and harder to get an answer for this. Re-reading what we said at the end of COP26 last year, I feel I’m only going to repeat myself today. Again and again.
So, what now? Some say let’s brush away the disappointment of COP27 and focus on COP15. That’s not a back-to-the-future moment but another biodiversity conference happening in December. Could there be groundbreaking decisions there? One can hope.
“Hope is not a strategy,” as my mentor would say, but when you have consumed all the tools available, when appealing to people’s humanity has failed, threatening them with dire gloom and doom reports has failed, even being transactional has failed, what’s left to do?
Maybe nothing, eventually. I know that seems odd to say that when we understand the level of urgency we’re facing. But, sometimes, doing nothing is better than exhausting yourself doing useless things. And it seems that COPs are just useless tools now.
We’ve learned recently about the global population reaching 8 billion people and its likelihood of peaking at 11 billion. Not to disappoint Elon Musk, but this may be some kind of good news. It seems that the global population is entering a slowing down phase and is self-regulating itself thanks to women empowerment, economic development, or babies just being really expensive.
The Malthusian apocalypse may never happen. And with less people than expected, there will be a need for less resources, less growth and maybe less pollution? A bit too straightforward to be realistic but there’s some sense to this.
So are we just going to let the planet self regulate? That’s what we call, when dealing with leaders and managers, the efficiency of inefficiency. Sometimes doing nothing is better because everything comes into place and evolves as it should naturally. Earth has had billions of year to perfect this way of doing.
But that’s for the bigger cosmic picture. And if it shocks you, it’s because this approach doesn’t cater for our individual scale. But it seems that’s what our decision makers want to happen. Had they been true to their word and their will to care, they would act now because they wouldn’t want people to be harmed in the process. They can’t be so stone-hearted, selfish and short-sighted to be like this. Or are they?
There are two possibilities here:
They either suffer, as most humans do, from the inability to understand the longer term and what’s at stake, unless the consequences of their actions/decisions knock literally on their doors. If so, then we’re in for a rough ride as it’ll require for harsher climate events and human suffering before they finally do something
Or, they understand what’s at stake but they are way too focused on their own interests and still can’t fathom that the problem is global and no rational or human thinking can limit itself to the artificial borders of the artificial concept that are nations or states.
Sometimes, I think we’ll have to wait for one generation to leave the seats of power for humanity to be able to move forward. When decision makers with skin in the game will be in place maybe we’ll find ways to act. Not out of humanity, but out of self-interest.
If not, then maybe I’ll start believing in fate and that we all deserve what we get. But I’m a stubborn optimistic so I’ll go with the first option.
Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury