COP 28: FRUSTRATION, SCEPTICISM, FAINT TRACE OF HOPE

When the Rio Earth Summit wrapped up 30 years ago, people like me, who belonged to environmental groups, saw it as a turning point. We knew the agreements reached at that gathering would be the templates for future progress.

Yet, even then, we had mixed feelings about the results. We felt vindicated by the environment making its way to the top of the UN’s agenda, but we were also sceptical and disappointed that the participating nations hadn’t gone far enough.

In both senses, the Rio Summit really was a template for everything that’s followed. The recurring themes in the efforts Rio spawned, like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, have been modest success mingled with disappointing procrastination.

ANNUAL CONFERENCE TO REVIEW PROGRESS AND PLAN NEXT STEPS

The Rio Summit produced the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). Every year, the UN holds a conference of that agreement’s parties to review progress and plan next steps.

The 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) starts next week. The 197 countries that signed the framework will be gathering in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The organizers are expecting more than 70,000 delegates to attend COP28. The political conference, called the blue zone, is dwarfed by the massive green zone of public gatherings and trade shows that spring up every year in host cities.

NOBODY EXPLAINED WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE OR HOW TO GET IT DONE

Part of the disappointment and scepticism that stems from the original Rio Earth Summit is that the parties promised nothing more than to “protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind.” Nobody explained who was responsible for this noble sounding goal or how they’d get it done.

The annual COP meetings are supposed to fill in those gaps. The UN tells us that COP meetings work out “ambition and responsibilities, and identify and assess climate measures.”

I think that means they’re supposed to figure out who does what. In practical terms, the parties need to find ways to cut humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and to mitigate the harm the climate crisis is doing in terms of forest fires, floods and droughts.

UN REACHES DECISIONS BY CONSENSUS

The UN isn’t a world government, it’s an association. It reaches decisions by consensus, and if you’ve ever belonged to an association, you’ve probably experienced how frustrating and convoluted decision making by committee can be.

COP28 will be the first session in which the parties review their progress at reaching the famous Paris Agreement goals of keeping global warming below 2˚, C and ideally below 1.5˚ C above pre-industrial levels.

Pardon my cynicism, but that part of the program should be very brief. The truth is, after 27 of these COP gatherings, there hasn’t been any progress worth mentioning.

‘STOP SETTING UNWANTED RECORDS ON GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS’

The 2023 Emissions Gap Report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) found that unless things change drastically, our planet’s temperature is headed for an increase of between 2.5˚ C and 2.9˚ C. UNEP’S executive director, Inger Andersen, expressed the need to “stop setting unwanted records on greenhouse gas emissions, global temperature highs and extreme weather.”

Ms Andersen continued, “We must instead lift the needle out of the same old groove of insufficient ambition and not enough action, and start setting other records: on cutting emissions, on green and just transitions and on climate finance.” Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported in its Greenhouse Gas Bulletin that there’s “no end in sight to the rising trend” in global emissions.

Of course, part of the problem is that keeping temperature rise below 1.5˚ C was never going to be easy. To get that done, humanity has to cut its carbon emissions by at least 42%.

‘WE ARE STILL HEADING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION’

That’s quite a challenge, because right now, carbon emissions are going up, not down. “Despite decades of warnings from the scientific community, thousands of pages of reports, and dozens of climate conferences, we are still heading in the wrong direction,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, explained.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres put it this way, “The emissions gap is more like an emissions canyon – a canyon littered with broken promises, broken lives, and broken records.”

The Secretary General went on to say, “All of this is a failure of leadership, a betrayal of the vulnerable, and a massive, missed opportunity,” and he called on member states “to tear out the poisoned root of the climate crisis: fossil fuels.”

RAISE AWARENESS AND LEAD TO MILESTONE ACCORDS

On a positive note, like the original Earth Summit in Rio, these annual COP gatherings raise public awareness of the climate crisis. They’re also the forums where milestone accords like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreements originate.

On the other hand, in practical terms, like that first Rio summit itself, most of these conferences of the parties seem to end up being “all talk and no action.” Of course, we can always hope that COP28 will be different.

AND ANOTHER THING…

There’s a way in which these global gatherings, in the official blue zone, and perhaps more importantly, in the more informal green zone, matter. They’re part of the new story humanity needs about our relationship with nature.

The community in the green zone in particular reflects a growing global movement. More and more everyday people are working to usher in a new ecozoic era of harmonious and mutually enhancing relationships between Earth and humanity.

Secretary General Guterres concluded by calling for governments “to increase ambition in their national climate plans and swiftly put those plans into action, and developed countries must rebuild trust by delivering on their finance commitments. COP28 must be the place to urgently close the climate ambition gap.”

We always have more to learn if we dare to know.

Learn more:

Secretary-General’s Message

Broken Record: Emissions Gap Report 2023

UN Report Calls for Urgent Climate Action

Carbon Budget Dwindling – Climate Goals at Risk

Dismal Progress Reports Cause Earth Day Frustrations