Image Source: Global Media Insight
As we approach the three-month anniversary of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), held at the tail end of last year in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, global leaders, and climate policy experts alike are already beginning to look forward to this year’s COP28, which is scheduled to be hosted in Dubai from November 30th - December 12th, 2023. In the wake of the previous COP, environmental experts around the world have assessed the conference’s fundamental discussions and outcomes, with a majority of commentators highlighting the apparent lack of success that has emerged from the climate discussions. Many reporters and analysts have even called the conference a complete failure. The main critique of the conference is the absence of penalties presented; without genuine economic sanctions, or other forms of punishment on the international scale, there is little to no incentive for primary polluter countries such as the U.S. or Australia to adopt new behaviors. While many of the concepts mentioned at COP27 touched on important areas and introduced new possible pathways toward curbing greenhouse gas emissions, the lack of commitments secured at the conference resulted in a lack of subsequent action. Yet another unsuccessful attempt at a climate conference held on the international stage begs the question: why host another? Why should we spend valuable time and resources on something that does more for the public image of global leaders rather than concrete climate legislation?
In order to tackle this question, it is paramount to look at the history of global climate agreements, and understand why they have become our current go-to solutions for fighting anthropogenic climate change. Many proponents of climate summits and international cooperative efforts use the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty passed in 1987 that aimed to phase out chlorofluorocarbons (ozone-depleting substances present in aerosols), as the model example of what future climate agreements should resemble. However, I do not believe that this precedent is applicable in today’s context, especially when used to combat greenhouse gasses (GHGs). The Montreal Protocol is hailed as the quintessential example of global climate summits because of the cooperation it induced and the quantifiable success of the solutions proposed. The Montreal Protocol is the only global agreement that has been signed by every member of the U.N. and is commonly called the most successful piece of international environmental legislation to date. The quick adoption of the Montreal Protocol that aided in the almost complete phase-out of CFCs within 15 years is now used as a template for how current and future climate agreements should operate. Nevertheless, this is a mistake because of the inherently different natures between CFCs and GHGs. When CFCs were discovered to be ozone-depleting substances, and thus massively detrimental to the global atmosphere, there were available alternatives that were simple to substitute that did not cause economic harm. Banning a substance that was not naturally occurring, such as a CFC, was also a fairly popular stance that did not elicit a lot of controversies because most people did not like the idea of an unnatural chemical in the atmosphere. However, the issue of CO2, a naturally occurring organic compound, is a different affair entirely and is one whose alternatives are financially much more difficult to obtain. We as a global community are (mostly) in agreement that our time window to address climate change is rapidly shrinking, but because we are so at odds in choosing the same solution, a climate summit such as the COP may not be a sufficient solution.
The Montreal Protocol can also attribute its success to enforced strict trade provisions, a characteristic that is rare to impossible to find in current climate summits on an international scale. All signatories of the Protocol agreed to trade provisions that excluded certain types of contact with non-participants of the agreement, which quickly put economic pressure on those who had opted out initially to sign on during later revisions of the agreement. In the final days of COP27, member states agreed after days of negotiation to establish a fund that would compensate developing countries and nations in the global south for damage caused by global warming. While many proponents of the summit called this a win, critics do not trust this promise because of the complete lack of accountability attached to the statement. With zero discussions about who will pay for this fund and how, I agree with critics in believing that this promise is more for public optics than real progress.
While I do see the merits in hosting a conference such as this, my primary issue with the event is that it is commonly referred to by world leaders when they are discussing the ways in which they are fighting global warming, when it is less of an actual solution and more of a promotion of image. One of the main merits of the COP is the ability of the conference to give voices to smaller countries that are often at the receiving end of climate change, demonstrated through the moving testimonies given by leaders from Pakistan and Mozambique, among others. The conference is also instrumental for suggesting new ideas and viewpoints to the international stage; it allows negotiations that cross global boundaries to take place in one central location. However, without accountability, I am not sure that the pros outweigh the cons. It is difficult to support this year’s COP28 because of the blame it exempts world leaders from in dealing with the climate crisis, when the energy and resources spent planning it could be channeled into other avenues. I think that hearing COP27 reiterate the same concerns and solutions, almost verbatim, as the Paris Agreement, held seven years prior in 2015, should be a wake-up call to advocates of global climate summits that something needs to change.
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