COP27, the United Nations Climate change conference, got underway this Monday in Egypt. On the opening day, there was a powerful and provocative speech from UN Secretary General, António Guterres, who warned that we are on “a highway to climate hell”. We are “in the fight of our lives, and we are losing.” He called on countries to keep climate at the top of their agendas – it shouldn’t go on the back burner because of other issues, such as economic problems or the war in Ukraine.
With my pessimistic hat on, you have to wonder whether the UN really has any authority these days. It has been unable to do anything meaningful about one of the permanent members of its Security Council (Russia) invading an independent country and committing horrible atrocities against citizens.
So will anything meaningful come out of this COP? It feels like the core purpose of these events has shifted somewhat over the years. There is still discussion around how emissions can be reduced, but other factors seem to be taking an increasing amount of focus. Maybe that is because emissions are still growing, so there are few success stories to talk about. Anyway, there is more talk about actions that can be taken to reduce the effects of climate change, and also about reparations.
The idea of reparations is that richer countries that have been accountable historically for a high proportion of emissions should now make payments to less developed countries. Many of those are now incurring problems and costs because of global heating, the sea level rising and more extreme weather.
But this is a difficult issue. The underlying logic is sound, but I’m not sure less wealthy folk in the UK or US for example would agree with the concept. There are significant numbers even in the richest countries who struggle to put food on the table for the family, or live in pretty terrible accommodation. Would they feel comfortable donating their taxes to Asian or African countries? Including countries that have failed to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine (or have actively supported it)?
There is also an inverse correlation between national wealth and corruption. For instance, some African countries have the natural resources to be much richer than they are. Blame historical colonialisation to some extent, but recent leaders of many countries (and a whole cohort of business people, public servants, and military officers) have also exploited their citizens and drained wealth out of their own countries. I fear that billions in reparations might just put even more money into the pockets of the corrupt.
Anther announcement at COP saw world leaders launching the Forests and Climate Leaders' Partnership, committing to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. We wrote here about the issues of biodiversity and loss of habitats and species, so this is a welcome initiative. But like so many previous ideas and programmes, the proof will be in the delivery. The UK government press release said this.
“The UK is announcing a further £65m for the nature pillar of the Climate Investment Fund, which will place Indigenous people and local communities, who shoulder the burden of climate change, at the heart of forest protection across rainforests, cloud forests and island forests”.
That’s fine, but just remember - £65 million is just a little less than PPEMedpro made in profit on supplying 25 million gowns to the UK NHS during the pandemic, gowns that weren’t used because of quality issues. In the greater scheme of both government expenditure and the fight against global deforestation and habitat destruction, it is a very small drop in a very large ocean.
Anyway, COP27 continues and we will have more to report shortly.