Although you’d never know it from the news coverage, representatives of 197 nations have gathered in Egypt to play poker with the fate of a billion odd people and quite possibly human civilization itself. The 27th Conference of the Parties (nations that agreed to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992) is where leaders will again gather to confront the fact that humans are quite likely destroying the earth as we know it, and try to get away with doing as little as possible about it. You’d think this sort of thing would be front page news!
Although lots of subjects are discussed, each COP tends to have a theme. Last year’s conference in Glasgow, Scotland focused on the fact that member countries were not doing nearly enough to avoid warming greater than 1.5 degrees Celsius, the point at which the scientific consensus is that the shit will really start hitting the fan. Most countries signed new pledges, few of which have been honored. Vladimir Putin had a lot to do with that — coal fired power plants have been taken out of mothballs, and atmospheric CO2 levels have spiked as a result.
This year’s conference: What responsibility do countries who caused this mess have to those who didn’t, but are disproportionately feeling its consequences. For instance, Kiribati which may disappear beneath the waves, or several African countries that are being baked beyond habitability. Polluting countries are generally willing and able to help the victims transition to net 0 economies, but don’t want to admit guilt for fear that they will be held legally liable for the skyrocketing damages caused by climate change. Which they are!
One of the reasons for the poor news coverage of the COPs is that the subjects being discussed are devilishly complicated: they don’t lend themselves to the attention span of the average news consumer. Many meetings take place behind closed doors, tend to run into overtime, and their results are often inscrutable to the average citizen who is just now starting to take climate issues seriously. In countries that allow freedom of speech, the news media can satisfy itself with covering the colorful protests that happen outside the conference centers. There’s unlikely to be very much of that in Sharm el Sheikh.
“We all live downstream”, as environmental activists have been telling us for decades — the greenhouse effect is irrefutable proof. Climate change is a global problem and requires a global solution. The UN, the only organization with such reach, was deliberately neutered at birth, a hobbled whipping boy of the major powers that has been continually chipped away since. Although the UN’s COP meetings assemble the best and brightest minds on addressing the problem, much of their work is frustrated by the UN’s weakness to enforce. A warming planet is likely just the first of several calamities that will require a global solution. Perhaps it is time to rethink our approach to global government.
What you can do:
The UN Conferences are ground zero for the confluence of outrage and optimism. Educate yourself about the goings on at COP 27.
The clearest explanations I have found on the inner workings of the COPs can be found at: Outrage & Optimism.
Get behind the United Nations
Ask your representatives in Washington why we are not honoring our previous commitments.
Ask your favorite news outlet to do serious reporting on COP27.
Thanks for reading,
Doug Hylan, Brooklin, Maine
“It's the greatest threat to life in sixty six million years, and I feel a little bit like I'm living in a crazy house, a crazy world because I turn on the news and they don't talk about it. You see our leaders and you can tell they don't feel the reality in their bones of what we're facing.” — Adam McKay, director of the movie Don’t Look Up.
Thanks for including the David Suzuki quote, "We all live downstream." When people experience the truth of that one, things might change. The situation reminds me of the good old D-A-Z-E of the Whole Earth Catalog and Stewart Brand's comment that he thought of calling his publication "The Don't Piss Against The Wind Newsletter." Now, more than a generation later, it looks like it's up to us citizen journalists to carry the torch and keep chipping away at the wall of denial. I'm continually amazed at the number of people I meet who don't have a clue about the UN COP conferences or the CO2 emissions goals that need to be met to avert Armageddon, thanks, no doubt, to a media industry that serves the issues of money and power instead of truth and justice. Keep your great little information-packed climate newsletter rolling, Doug. The wind is picking up!