Cop27 finally ended in the early hours of Sunday morning with an agreed statement from the participating nations.
It was presented by some as a success, in particular the agreement signed by 196 countries to create a “loss and damage” fund, a major breakthrough some 15 years after the idea was first mentioned. That fund would support less-wealthy countries who are the victims of climate change via floods or other “natural disasters”. However, there is no definition yet of how much money will be committed, how the fund will operate and still doubts around which countries will contribute.
Should it be the “historic” big carbon villains (the UK, US, Germany, etc) who cough up or should the current major emitters also contribute - which covers both rich nations such as Saudi Arabia and some developing mid-income countries, principally China, India and Indonesia. There were even suggestions that private sector firms in oil and gas industries or even airlines might contribute.
There was a lot of focus on this issue during Cop, and it seemed at times to outweigh what might be considered the more fundamental purpose, to address the apparently inexorable increase in emissions and the resulting global heating and climate change. A cynic might suggest that given the lack of success around emissions, agreeing to the fund at least gives politicians some “good news” that might keep their citizens who care about these issues happy.
While helping poorer nations mitigate the effects of climate change is a reasonable and fair step, it does not in itself do anything to actually address the core issue of emissions driving climate change. And unfortunately Cop27 made little or no progress really in that area. As experts such as Bill McGuire have pointed out, the chances now of staying within 1.5C warming are extremely slim. The trajectory over recent years for global emissions has stayed on an upwards curve, with a blip because of the covid shutdowns. So the required “hockey stick” change in that curve to achieve the 1.5 target becomes more pronounced and less likely as every year goes by.
The deal announced this week omits any call for countries to provide new plans for reducing emissions by 2030, which is why we can confidently say that the 1.5C target will not be met. For instance, there was no agreement to phase out oil and gas, to limit new exploration or production. Coal is supposed to be on that downward track. But China is opening a new coal-fired power station every week, and Australia – the world’s biggest exporter of coal – continues to open new mines (although the new government there is showing more signs of action than their predecessors). We are on track for at least a 2.4C temperature increase, which may well bring more catastrophic events and effects on humankind. Remember that is just an average, so some locations will see far higher increases.
Politicians are just not prepared to sacrifice current economic wealth for future benefit. To be fair, that must be because they don’t believe their citizens will sign up to that. So it seems that our best hope is for businesses to take on the challenge as far as they can. As we said in the Procurement with Purpose book, the organisations with the longest timeframes are probably the large corporate pension funds. A good friend of mine chairs one of the biggest single company pension funds in the world, and he talks about the prospects for an 18 year old joining that company today. “We want them to have a decent pension – and a decent life - in 50, 60, 70 years’ time”.
That’s why investors such as those pension funds do care about the long-term and can have an impact. Many businesses and business owners too take a pretty long-term view, whereas politicians think about their next election.
So I’m coming to the view that Cop really is a waste of time and not worth the emissions it creates with hundreds of private jets flying in and all the other consequent emissions - “a bloated travelling circus that sets up once a year, and from which little but words ever emerge” as McGuire eloquently puts it. It is simply there so that politicians can feel better about themselves and (they hope) win some votes by seeming to do something.
Our only hope is for all of us an individuals to take the action we can (turn the thermostat to 17C – that is quite warm enough) and for our companies and organizations to take action. We simply cannot rely on governments to get us out of this huge global hole.