If you’re like me and assumed the yearly U.N. Climate Summit that took place in November would be chaotic, disorganized and indecisive, then you’d be exactly right.
It was not exactly a surprise, considering the ambassadors can barely get along on a good day — much less over an issue with as much economic, financial and moral stake as climate change. However, it is still disappointing to watch our policy makers ambiguously call for action, slowly dilute their words and creep backwards on their promises.
The summit, known as COP29, took place in Azerbaijan — a hosting choice littered with controversies given that the country has earned the moniker “petrostate” from the extreme benefits it reaps from fossil fuels. The country “faced accusations of conflict of interest and malpractice” according to Carbon Brief, as “fossil fuels make up more than 90% of all exports and two-thirds of government revenue.”
Azerbaijan was only decided on after a string of vetoes from Russia and Armenia on all other options.
The negotiations concluded with developed countries promising to give $300 billion to developing countries by 2035, a rise from the previous goal of $100 billion. Though, reports from the London School of Economics emphasize the need for up to $6.7 trillion dollars of climate investment depending on the economy and country. Many activists were hoping for a $1.3 trillion commitment from developed countries.
Countries are instead calling for investments from the private sector to get to that $1.3 trillion mark, which developing nations are viewing as little more than clumsy scapegoating.
Representative Chandni Raina of India was incensed: “It is a paltry sum,” she said. “I am sorry to say that we cannot accept it. We seek a much higher ambition from developed countries.”
The Panama representative, Juan Carlos Monterrey, was in agreement. “This process was chaotic, poorly managed, and a complete failure in terms of delivering the ambition required,” he said.
So, the developing countries left the agreement mad and disillusioned, and the developed countries left feeling uncertain at best, since the recent U.S. election could mean overturning any progress made anyway.
I’ll acquiesce that the Climate Summit has made significant progress over the past couple of decades. Because what’s better: ineffective, underwhelming climate deals or no climate deals at all?
Governmental action on climate policy is maddeningly, painfully slow, because at the end of the day, it’s also voluntary. No higher power is enforcing country attendance, and anarchy is king as rich, oil-powered countries argue with the smaller underdogs, which end up bearing the cross of the wildfires, rising sea levels and scorching temperatures.
Developed countries pass around the blame to avoid coughing up more money, and developing countries suffer. Countries fight, existing aid gets labeled and relabeled and it feels like we don’t accomplish anything. And, some people argue, these international meetings really don’t.
After all, this is COP29, meaning the 29th conference — and still many of the problems presented got shunted to COP30 in Brazil next year. What happens when we’re at COP35 and these problems are still getting rehashed? COP40?
Steven Cohen of Columbia University argues that governments are inherently too self-interested to make progress quickly. “Government’s role will include regulation,” he wrote in State of the Planet, the news site of the Columbia Climate School. “It will not include the implementation of mandates from global agreements.”
“It will be human ingenuity, creating new technologies and new business models, that will ultimately address the climate crisis and the crisis of global environmental sustainability,” he wrote. He claims we’ve already seen a shift towards more sustainable corporations and a rise in clean energy industries that will eventually become the most cost-effective option.
I agree with Cohen to an extent. These big summits are messy, and even more localized ones would likely still be inefficient. We have seen a significant shift towards green energy, with corporations taking action or greenwashing, to capitalize on sustainability being the new trend among younger generations.
But I think Cohen is too optimistic. Change is happening, but how quickly? Is it right that this change must be at the grassroots level, at the hands of the most basic subunit of society slowly shifting the status quo?
U.N. Climate Chief Simon Stiell said that “global cooperation is not down for the count.”
If this is what global cooperation looks like when it’s not “down,” I’d hate to see it when it’s fully on the way out.
We can’t expect to battle climate change when we don’t even have a decent way of talking about it. Something needs to give — we need to think about restructuring these events to make more headway.
The climate crisis is a lose-lose battle ,and fighting it requires countries to give up extensive resources for a cause we won’t see realized for years to come. COP29 is a microcosm of our inability to band together and should serve as a wake-up call to our world leaders to try something new.
