SETH W. JAMES

Humanity’s Choice at COP27

December 2, 2022

By Seth W. James

The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP27, recently concluded in Sharm El-Sheikh, Sinai, Egypt, where humanity again chose not to save itself.  I remember Sharm, somewhat, from my time serving as a member of the Multinational Force and Observers, a peacekeeping force that, since 1981, has sat on the border between Egypt and Israel and prevented war.  41 years without a war is quite an achievement.  The city, sadly, could not bestow a similar record of achievement upon this year’s climate conference, which ended without a commitment to reducing greenhouse gasses.

“We need to drastically reduce emissions now—and this is an issue this COP did not address,” said António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN.  “We are already halfway between the Paris Climate Agreement and the 2030 deadline.”

Anyone following at least the headlines concerning COP and climate action generally, will have probably run across the number 1.5 degrees Celsius.  That number refers to a goal set by the Paris Climate Agreement, to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above historical median Earth temperatures.  The IPCC—The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that assesses the science related to climate change—has clearly stated that every fraction of a degree above this mark will drastically increase the harmful effects of climate change, things such as droughts, heatwaves, flooding, storms (i.e. hurricanes and typhoons), and more.  As bad as all of those direct consequences can be, however, it is the knock-on effects that are particularly harmful to human beings: with droughts and flooding comes food shortages, emergency migration—as people flee famine and conflict—wars erupt as nations or non-national entities struggle to seize what water resources remain, while heatwaves and mega-storms kill directly and destroy the infrastructure used to sustain human life.  And all of those consequences become more frequent, and take place in more parts of the world, with each fraction of a degree the Earth warms.

Kenyan environmental youth activist Elizabeth Wathuti summed up the situation best when she said, “The interconnected food, nature and climate crisis are right now affecting us all, but the frontline communities like mine are hardest hit. How many alarm bells need to be sounded before we act?”  How many, indeed.  There have been 27 COP conferences and humanity has yet to agree to save itself.  There were, however, several plans taken forward regarding finance, observation, and, most importantly, the “loss and damage” fund.

One of the many harmful effects of the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement was the stalling of a framework and funding for addressing the immediate damage caused by climate change.  COP27 laid the groundwork for such a “loss and damage” fund, which will help struggling countries to recover and adapt.  It’s the “adapt” part that worries me.

From the UN’s news service: “Observers have warned that new language including “low emissions” energy alongside renewables as the energy sources of the future is a significant loophole, as the undefined term could be used to justify new fossil fuel development against the clear guidance of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA).”  It should also be noted that short-term benefits—such as carbon-credit trading, under Article 6 of the Paris Climate Agreement, which allows for the selling of carbon emission limits, and adaption efforts—are a growing interest for big business.  It has been estimated that “adaption” technologies and strategies, which worryingly do not strive to prevent climate change, merely make it more bearable, could grow into a $2 trillion-per-year industry.  To me, this seems dangerous: if big business can make more money “adapting” to climate change than they can by preventing it, what chance do we have of avoiding the worst effects of climate change?

In closing, at this year’s COP we saw more of the same inaction that has been dooming humanity for decades.  It is encouraging to see wealthy nations, such as the United States, take some action to remediate the damage they are causing to other nations, through the “loss and damage fund,” and yet such a fund will never mitigate the coming damage caused by the Earth surpassing the 1.5-degree Celsius mark.  The only way forward to a future in which humanity continues to exist on the Earth is to cease the production of greenhouse gasses, particularly from the use of fossil fuels: with the major producers of fossil fuels—such as Russia and Saudi Arabia—continuing to block UN action, supported by big business and the billionaires around the world, the only way forward seems farther away than ever.