Commentary 23/12/09 Climate change and human perfidy

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Climate change and human perfidy

Will COP 28 in Dubai come up with answers to the most pressing issues of our time?

Environmental activists display placards during a demonstration at the venue of the COP28 United Nations climate summit in Dubai on Dec. 6. A record almost 2,500 fossil fuel lobbyists have been accredited for UN climate talks in Dubai, as negotiators wrestle with calls to end all new oil, gas and coal projects to curb global warming, campaign groups said. (Photo: AFP)

Few will disagree that climate change has become one of the most serious problems of the modern world.

Every day the media bring us stories of global warming, rising sea levels, increased air pollution and violent tempests which leave havoc and destruction in their wake.

Climate, it seems, is the new enemy.

There’s a Swedish proverb that goes, “Don’t complain about the weather. Just change your clothes!” Alas, no longer is this true. What we need is not just a change of clothes, but a change of mindset.

And creatures of habit that we all are, this is the hardest to do. Who among us will willingly give up our cars, our airplanes, our air conditioners?

And yet, the more intelligent among us know that unless we drastically change our style of living, this planet of ours is headed for a grave and universal disaster. 

For example: the Paris Agreement of 2015 pledged governments to keep average global temperatures “well below 2 degrees Celsius,” a threshold crossing, beyond which the impact of climate change would be very severe globally – droughts, heat waves and rainfall.

And yet, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for 2023 revealed that the average global temperature has risen 2.9 degrees Celsius.

This is the context of COP 28, presently being held in Dubai.

COP and its agenda

COP — “the Conference of the Parties” — is an annual international meeting on the climate and its global effects. The “parties” here are the 197 nations, which came together to form the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Two years later, in 1994, the “parties” of the UNFCCC met and pledged to take voluntary action “to prevent anthropogenic [caused by humans] damage to the climate system.”

Dubai is the 28th such meeting, hence the name.

In 2015, COP 21 met in Paris and came up with a landmark agreement signed by nearly 200 members. This was a strategy to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and is presently the main treaty for coordinating global action on climate change.

What is the greenhouse gas effect?

Greenhouse gases are gases in the earth’s atmosphere that trap heat. Thereby they stabilize the earth’s temperature at an average of 14˚C (57˚F) and make it conducive for human and animal inhabitation.

The gases act like the glass walls of a greenhouse — whence their name. Without this greenhouse effect, temperatures would drop to as low as -18˚C (-0.4˚F), too cold to sustain life on earth.

But human activities are changing the earth's natural greenhouse effect with a dramatic increase in the release of greenhouse gases. Scientists agree greenhouse gases are the cause of global warming and climate change.

Global temperatures have accelerated in the past 30 years and are now the highest since records began. And almost all of these are “anthropogenic,” that is, caused by human activity.

Thus carbon dioxide (CO2) is released through natural processes, such as plant respiration, and animals and humans breathing.

But the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by 50 percent since the Industrial Revolution began in the 1800s, due to the burning of fossil fuels and large-scale deforestation. Due to its abundance, CO2 is the main contributor to climate change.

Similarly, methane produced in nature through decomposition has displaced the natural balance through its release into the atmosphere by cattle farming, landfill waste dumps, rice farming and the traditional production of oil and gas.

Finally, nitrous oxide produced through the large-scale use of commercial and organic fertilizers, fossil-fuel combustion, nitric-acid production and biomass burning is yet another contributor to the greenhouse effect. 

The tensions between coal and ‘O&G’

Two years ago at COP 26 in Glasgow, an agreement was reached to phase down the use of coal.

This concession was wrung from countries like India, China and Indonesia that depend heavily on coal to meet their energy needs.

But notice that the developed countries of the West which depend heavily on oil and gas (O&G), continue to resist any curb on their use of fossil fuels: 54 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from O&G, and 40 percent from coal. In the USA, the dependence on O&G is 70 percent!

Two recent initiatives

The Paris Climate Accord of 2015 was signed by 195 countries, but it remains a voluntary agreement, not a compulsory one. This means that the UN cannot force countries to cut emissions. Countries make Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) but these are not legally binding, and there is no penalty for non-compliance.

For the first time however, a new technique will be implemented in Dubai — Global Stocktaking (GST), a  review of the global pledges made by each nation to see where the world stands on climate action.

The assumption is that disclosing information puts pressure on countries to enhance their commitments.

Will this work? COP28 will tell us.

At COP 27 in Egypt last year, a fund was proposed to help small and poor nations who have suffered disproportionately from climate-related disasters. This is the Loss and Damage Fund (LDF) meant to be endowed by the rich nations whose earlier industrialization has caused the present ecological crisis.

But will the developed world accept responsibility for its historical emissions, and come to the aid of the Global South in times of ecological disaster? Or will it continue to burn oil and gas and utter empty platitudes?

If the past is any indication, and human greed and selfishness any guide, the future of the planet doesn’t seem too bright.

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.