The COP Treadmill Occasionally Spins Faster, But Never Actually Goes Anywhere

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In the end, a clear statement on phasing out fossil fuels, sought by more than 100 countries at COP28, was replaced with weaker language suggesting a speedy transition away from oil, gas and coal energy, and much of the world was disappointed, with leader after leader from developing countries saying it was not enough to meet the urgency of the moment. To add insult to injury, the final plenary this year adopted the watered-down version in the absence of representatives of some of the most vulnerable countries, including most of the Alliance of Small Island States, who afterward questioned the legitimacy of a decision that’s supposed to rest on global consensus. Many long-time participants and observers said those tense moments reflected the continued dysfunction of global climate governance.

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Like every preceding edition, COP28 failed to heed the Earth Summit’s clarion call for deep societal transformations, said Harjeet Singh, head of political global strategy with Climate Action Network International, a nonprofit civil society umbrella group representing tens of thousands of people in member groups from every continent. Instead, it seemed like the latest round in a 30-year game of tic-tac-toe, said Singh, adding he puts most of the blame for the 30-year deadlock on the United States and the countries of the European Union. The U.S. and Europe have spewed by far the most climate-harming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere during the last 150 years, and also benefited the most economically from unbridled fossil fuel burning, but at the expense of hundreds of other less developed countries, Singh said.

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The announcement that COP29 will be in Baku, Azerbaijan, can feel like a dark, eerie affirmation that some countries don’t participate in the global climate talks in good faith, but rather remain committed to a fossil fuel future. Beyond the flags near the entrance plaza, COP28 delegates headed for the various national centers strolled past a futuristic two-story open-air dome with an evening light show and electronic music that could herald the entrance of an intergalactic villain in a sci-fi movie, and on the fringes are tens of thousands more people who don’t represent countries or people, but are there in the service of climate capitalism.

Seemingly all-mighty petrodollars are currently being rebranded as green carbon dollars under various schemes involving some variation of trading permission to keep emitting for a promise to protect some trees or suck CO2 out of the air in the future, but recent research and reports show many are marked by some shade of greenwashing, according to the many watchdog groups trying to track the carbon rodeo. “It’s a jamboree, a circus that goes on once a year, a distraction,” said Aaron Thierry, an ecologist at Cardiff University. “COP gets us all to focus our energies and attention there, as though it’s where decisions really get made.” That leaves many people thinking that the problem will be solved because important, top-level government people are talking about it. The message is, “we can’t act ourselves,” outside of the U.N. process, he added. “We are supposed to wait until our governments make the decisions at this determined place and time,” he said.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25122023/climate-treadmill-at-cop28-not-going-anywhere/