The institution of the COP is in danger, if all we get is lip service towards issues of sustainability, with the hard deals serving corporate interest closed in the backrooms of power.
Sandeep Chachra, Executive Director, ActionAid Association (The author is at the COP28)
COP28 is threatening to be a big disappointment. The 28th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, like most of the previous meetings is showing signs that our institutions are failing us, now and our future generations.
We can be glad that the loss and damage fund that was agreed to in the COP27 has been operationalised, but with paltry sums pledged to it this could turn out to be a hollow gain.The needs of vulnerable communities, the overwhelming majorities of whom are in the Global South are escalating to reach hundreds of billions of dollars.
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The presence of thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists, according to some estimates these lobbyists could together constitute the third largest contingent. Not just the number of fossil fuel lobbyists but Sultan Al Jaber the President of COP28, is also CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and has reportedly stated there is no science behind the calls to phase out fossil fuels. Dr Al Jaber has refuted these reports but has not shared any evidence to support this revised claim.
More importantly the COP28 seems to continue to show the dominance of corporate interests. We can see this in minimizing pressures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce corporate responsibilities towards financing the loss and damage fund, while making all efforts for expanding business’s role in using climate change as an opportunity to create yet another accumulative industrial revolution or a new economic development project for the benefit of a few.
As climate activists have stated this is what you get when you call on arms dealers to preside on peace talks or request the fox to suggest ways in which we can protect the chicken coop.
The draft text prepared by the COP28 President, of the First global stocktake, a review exercise mandated by the 2015 Paris agreement to be carried out this year,keeps fossil fuel phase out or phase down out of the document circulated on Monday evening. And some countries are threatening not to sign on the document as it is “death certificate” to small island states.
We need to recognize that in real terms phasing out is not possible without a substantive and urgent financial and technical support to developing countries. Such efforts need to be premised on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and a recognition that it is the actions of developed countries that are the main cause of climate change that is killing poor people around the world. We need to recognise that the path to just transitions will first and foremost need developed countries to respect and enhance their promises for climate financing and put an end to their oil and gas use, and its further expansion. None of this is happening, as the developed world keeps guzzling and barrelling away oil and gas, while stalling all calls for multiplied climate financing needed to enable transparent, equitable, just and eternal transitions out of fossil fuels.
The institution of the COP is in danger, if all we get is lip service towards issues of sustainability, with the hard deals serving corporate interest closed in the backrooms of power. We need more pressure from vulnerable communities through their social movements, their organisations and their governments to counter both the interests the powerful nations of the developed countries and the pressures of multinational corporate interests that depend on over extractive, over polluting and over exploiting industrial processes. We need popular pressure to ensure that profits do not triumph over people and the planet.
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