COP 27: Decision Time in Egypt
The most important climate conference since Paris comes down to one key question.
Seen from one angle, the upcoming two
weeks of talks at the UN's COP 27 climate conference boils down to one
essential question: Does the world move forward with something like a
just transition to clean energy?
The unofficial theme of this year's
conference could very well be "Climate Action in a Time of Polycrisis"
(the term from Adam Tooze and others for multiple interrelated crises converging simultaneously).
After all, negotiators arrive in Egypt
at a time when the global energy crisis unleashed by Russian aggression
in Ukraine means the question top of mind for many Northern Hemisphere
leaders isn't how they'll meet their emissions goals for 2030, but
simply how they'll keep the lights and some heat on through spring 2023.
And if they perform that miracle, how they then survive what could be
an even tighter crunch in 2024.
Then there's the dizzying cascade of
knock-on crises as inevitable as gravity in a global economy shaped by
fossil fuels. The mad scramble for gas in Africa, as Russia turns off the tap to Europe. Food shortages, rising inflation, and a cost-of-living crisis across Europe.
This was not the 2022 negotiators at last year's COP 26 envisioned as they emerged bleary-eyed with an agreement calling for a "phase down" of unabated coal use and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies worldwide. Which, at the time, felt both disappointing and a critical step forward.
But it's where we are. And it means the
task of marshalling, prompting, and flat-out cajoling nearly 200
nations from the typhoon-battered Philippines to petro-bullies like
Saudi Arabia to not only navigate the moment but remain committed to
deep decarbonization goes from just very hard to nearly Herculean.
The Stakes Are Planet-Sized
The stakes do not come higher. The UN recently highlighted the yawning chasm
between countries' pledges to climate action and their actual efforts,
noting there is "no credible pathway" to the Paris Agreement goal of
holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius without a radical increase
in ambition from the international community. With no change on our
current path, the UN reports, we're on track to see an average increase
of 2.8 degrees (C) this century, a number whose size belies the
extraordinary suffering it entails.
If there is a silver lining to COP 27
taking place in this moment, it's the clarity of the choice it presents.
Because while it would be a mistake to reduce the complexity of all
these events swirling in the background to one factor alone, it would
take a staggering act of will to miss the common element they share.
Namely, a joined-at-the-hip connection to fossil fuels subject not only to wild price swings that ripple through, well, pretty much everything, but also to the whims of murderous autocrats from Moscow to Riyadh.
What leaders in Europe must decide is
will we respond to this moment with long-term choices that lock in
decades of more pipelines and plants whose emissions will make the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree goal all but impossible?
Not to mention all but guarantee yet more instability and emergencies
in the years ahead? (For anyone who thinks this is our last
petro-dictator-threatens-global-economy rodeo, we have a portfolio of
bridges on sale for your consideration.)
Or do we see the addiction to oil, gas,
and coal that got us here for what it is and choose a new way forward,
speeding the transition to clean energy across the planet?
These two weeks will not alone or definitively provide the answer. But they will go a long way.
What Can COP 27 Do?
As Ethan Spaner, Climate Reality's international director, repeatedly says, "It's not COP's job to save the world."
Instead, what COP does is tell a story of what humanity could
be as we together face the greatest threat to our shared existence –
and what it will take to get there. Whether we embrace that story and
rise to make it a reality or not, well, that's up to us the other 50
weeks of the year.
The story of COP goes back to the formation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
What the UNFCCC gave us was the first
truly global mechanism for confronting the climate crisis just then
beginning to rise to the forefront of public and political
consciousness. By the end of the year, 158 countries had signed on as
"parties" to the agreement.
Three years later, the first Conference
of the Parties (COP) was held in Berlin, beginning the now-yearly
series of meetings attempting to unite an international community of
wildly divergent and competing interests to stop rising temperatures.
The real breakthrough came at COP 21 in 2015, with the historic Paris Agreement, where nearly 200 countries agreed to a goal of holding "the
increase in the global average temperature to well below 2° C above
pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature
increase to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels."
What made the Paris Agreement possible –
and for nations as disparate as the US, UAE, and Uganda to all sign on –
was the introduction of nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
NDCs enabled all countries to define for themselves what they would do
to help reach the broader Paris goal based on where they were in terms
of development and resources.
The virtue of this approach was its
reliance on self-determination. The challenge was that it omits any
mechanism for enforcement, relying on countries to go big enough to meet
the goal in their pledges and then live up to their word.
Even at the time, countries knew the
agreement was a first step, with analysts noting that even if everyone
met their stated NDC goals, it likely still wouldn't be enough to hold warming to 2 degrees, much less 1.5.
Every COP since Paris has, in many
ways, been an effort to get nations to not only live up to their
original (read "not good enough") pledges but raise the bar with the
kind of commitments that can actually meet the agreement's goals.
So far, work remains. As the UN notes, few countries are even close to making good
on their original pledges. Fewer still have increased their
commitments. And now fossil fuel opportunists are using the pretext of
war and energy crises to push for more drilling and pipelines.
Which brings us to COP 27.
Decision Time in Sharm El-Sheikh
No question the headwinds are strong. Global emissions rose – not fell – to an all-time peak in 2021 as the world economy rebounded from COVID, in part by burning lots and lots of coal.
Meanwhile, the global finance community seems to hardly have noticed impacts like the climate-fueled floods in Pakistan that displaced 33 million people and killed another 1,200, collectively pumping $742 billion into the same fossil fuel projects driving this crisis.
But if anything is clear, it's that the
fossil fuel economy that brought us here isn't working. And if the
global response to the crises taking over the headlines is yet more
pipelines and dirty power plants, we can only expect more of the same in
the years ahead.
The answer to does the world move
forward with a truly just energy transition has to be yes. To ensure it
does, we're calling for action on two fronts in particular at COP 27.
1. Honoring the Commitments Already Made
Seven years ago, world leaders made us a
promise to slash emissions and halt global warming in the Paris
Agreement. Wealthy nations promised to help developing countries adapt
to a warmer world. Few have kept their word. That has to change,
starting at COP 27.
What This Means
- Major emitters and other nations make concrete plans to fulfill existing NDCs and new commitments to speed society-wide emission cuts and energy transition going forward.
- Establishing a new program for wealthy
nations to share practical solutions from business, industry, local
governments, and other sectors that other countries can quickly and
easily replicate in their own country-specific manner.
- Developed nations fulfill their promise
to pay $100 billion annually to help developing nations transition to
clean energy and thrive in a climate-changed future.
2. Financing a Sustainable Future Together
It's time for the World Bank and other major
financial institutions to finally say no to the pipelines and fossil
plants destroying our health and our planet. Time for these
institutions to use their incredible financial power to send the global
energy transition into hyperdrive. Time for developed countries to work with developing nations to build a future where we all thrive.
What This Means
- The World Bank sets an example and
contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement by ending all support
for fossil fuel projects and massively increasing lending for clean
energy projects.
- Developed and developing nations work together to set an ambitious new goal for climate finance beginning in 2026.
- Wealthy nations expand and unify finance
initiatives to help developing countries rebuild after climate
disasters, address climate impacts, and create resilient clean energy
economies.
- Developing nations are able to build clean energy economies through enhanced market access and lower interest rates.
FOLLOW US AT COP 27
Climate Reality will be on the ground
at COP 27, sharing stories and updates as we fight for progress on these
three vital fronts. Follow along with us here and on Instagram at @ClimateReality. Plus, if you're not already, join over 1 million subscribers around the world on our digital activist list.
I really hope that something will come out of this convention, but I am seriously doubting that anything will. On the face of it, all I can see is a lot of people arriving and talking crap. Of course we have to question the mode of transport used, which highlights the total double standards of the whole thing. Every year I have followed this event and this year it seems to be bordering on a farce. They talked and talked and talked in the last one and still we are racing towards more disasters and hardship. When will governments have the guts to penalise these companies who are destroying our planet with their greed? On the other hand, we as people (consumers really) realise that it is our duty to act as well. We cannot leave it to a group of people completely out of touch with the real world. I feel for the delegates from the smaller islands and countries that are suffering because of we are doing to them. I would love to be proved wrong and this is the one that will make a difference.
It makes me really angry because there are a lot of good people out there trying to make a difference, but until everyone helps it will be difficult. Unfortunately when people start boo hooing that they are running out of this and that, blah blah blah, it may be too late.
PEOPLE, WAKE UP, GET OFF YOUR BACKSIDES AND DO SOMETHING, IT ONLY NEEDS TO BE ONE SMALL CHANGE ,TURN DOWN THE HEATING OR ONLY HAVE IT ON AT CERTAIN TIMES, USE THE CAR LESS, USE PUBLIC TRANSPORT MORE AND TRY TO BUY LESS ITEMS ENCASED IN PLASTIC.
The blog song for today is: "Boulevard of broken dreams" by Green Day
TTFN
Lorena Rivera
Critically Endangered
Indonesia
