Victor Anderson on the continuing failure of the UN’s climate conferences to deliver
Just the name “COP29” should worry you. The Conferences of the Parties to the UN Climate Change Convention have been held nearly every year since the Convention itself was signed at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. That was just over 32 years ago. A whole generation! Greenhouse gas emissions and global average temperatures have risen steadily during that time.
Trying something once can turn out a mistake, and there can always be a reluctance to change even despite two mistakes. But trying something 29 times when it isn’t working does seem a pretty extreme position to take, especially when the consequences of failure are not just predicted for the future but are already arriving.
This is not to say that no progress has been made during this period. In particular, scientists and engineers working on renewable energy research have done a good job at improving efficiency and cutting costs, and that has been reinforced by political action and decisions favouring the production of renewables at scale, with economies of scale cutting costs still further.
But (1) this progress has been outweighed by other factors, and particularly the increased burning of fossil fuels (coal roughly levelling off very recently but oil and gas continuing to surge ahead); (2) this progress with renewables has not been achieved through the mechanism of the COPs; and (3) equity in bearing costs and getting benefits has not been at all in evidence, either within countries or globally. Destruction through climate change has become yet another way in which the richer sections of the world have damaged the living conditions and economic prospects of the poorest.
Some efforts were made at COP29 to put this right. There is a new figure – 300 billion dollars a year – for the money which richer states, including through multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, say they will provide to the poorer ones by 2035.
However, there is no guarantee that the money will actually be delivered (previous similar pledges have not always been honoured) and the wording of the COP agreement leaves the door open for the money to be provided in the form of loans, despite many countries already suffering from a debt crisis. On top of that, and depending on how the calculations are done, it is in any case only a fraction of the cost of the climate damage done to poorer economies and the cost of them transitioning to a greener future.
There wasn’t any progress at COP on a proposal which should be at the centre of future negotiations: the idea of an agreement to phase out the use of fossil fuels through a Fossil Fuel Treaty. Although COPs make decisions by unanimity and so clearly would not have been able to agree to it, a Fossil Fuel Treaty would be simply amongst the states that signed up to it. It would be a “coalition of the willing” but it could expand, rather than, as with COPs, requiring every country to be on board with it from that start. Global Justice Now is running a campaign in support of this proposal: Globaljustice
Well thanks for that cheery missive, Vic. What do you suggest we do about it – jump off a cliff? Take belladonna? I don’t think ordinary citizens are any keener than the government representatives at these conferences. I say that because domestic heating is an area virtually all of us can/should address – but we’re not.