COP27 & Election Day
Hi, all.
COP 27 (AKA the 2022 Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Climate Change Conference) is underway. Held annually since 1992 to discuss and ideally agree to take action on climate change on a global scale, COP this year is taking place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The conference started today, so there’s not too much to report yet, but some important themes are emerging already:
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres keeps looking for ways to impress upon the rest of the world just how important it is that everyone takes action to lower emissions, saying in his opening remarks that “We are in the fight of our lives. And we are losing. Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising. And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible…We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.” While Guterres certainly didn’t mince words, the cynical side of me thinks that this repetition of how screwed we are probably won’t make that much of a difference.
What might make a difference, however, is the level of climate-change related destruction we’ve seen in the past year. The envoy from Pakistan, Nabeel Munir, spoke of the devastating flooding his country saw and implored world leaders to adopt a loss and damage scheme, which would see wealthy, developed countries put aside money for developing nations dealing with the brunt of the climate crisis despite contributing mere fractions of what wealthy, developed countries have put into the atmosphere. Loss and damage is officially on the agenda for the first time, which is a small, yet important gesture that will hopefully come to more soon. Read an article from Atmos magazine about loss and damage here.
Meanwhile, the Russian invasion of Ukraine served as an ominous backdrop to the proceedings. With Russian gas not an option, many countries have looked for new sources of oil and gas and there were even countries advertising their oil and gas reserves at the conference. As Guterres remarked, “many of today’s conflicts are linked with growing climate chaos,” and one cannot be addressed without considering the other.
Another grim background to the conference this year is the lack of protesting: As a part of larger pattern of disallowing any form of protest against the government, Egypt has kept a tight grip on the conference as it “is being held in a convention center heavily patrolled by the Egyptian military, with unusually tight security restrictions that essentially shutdown any display of dissent.”
All in all, not a particularly promising start, but we’ll hold out some hope for something good to come of COP27. Stay tuned for when we check back in in a couple of weeks.
Of course the other HUGE note this week is that it’s election day tomorrow!! If you haven’t yet, make a plan to vote! Then make a plan to ask your friends and family if they have a plan to vote! This is one of the few opportunities we have to make our voices heard as citizens, so let’s make addressing climate change a priority.
Thanks for reading!