[Opinión] COP27, the new Climate Summit organized by the UN, has begun to be held in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh. It will bring together until November 18 invited leaders from 200 countries, politicians, business leaders, activists and other representatives of civil society and the truth is that -seen the results of compliance with previous summits– We do not believe that it will serve any effective purpose.
The objectives of COP 27 will be familiar to you because they are the ones that are repeated over and over again: “take action on certain essential issues to address the climate emergency, ranging from urgently reducing greenhouse gas emissions, building resilience and adapting to the unavoidable consequences of climate change, to meeting financing commitments for climate action in developing countries».
Talks and more talks… without concrete results, with few agreements, fewer commitments and non-compliance with them. And it is that if a Summit on the climate begins without some of the biggest polluters on the planet (Russia, China and India) going to participate and with another big polluter, the United States, in minimum mode (Joe Biden will not attend until the end of the week) imagine if it can be used for something. And above with arrests of protesters
Certainly, the recent energy crisis caused by the war initiated by Putin in the Ukraine, does not help. The record concentrations of greenhouse gases and the increase in extreme weather events are measurable and palpable and the main objective of this COP27 must be to go back (again), renew solidarity between countries to fulfill the historic Paris Agreement, unambiguously eliminating the use and production of fossil fuels and increasing climate finance from rich countries to those with fewer resources.
COP 27, is there any hope?
The United Nations has issued a warning (another one) at the start of COP 27: the last eight years have been the warmest on record to date and therefore it will be very difficult to achieve the Paris commitment of not exceeding 1.5 degrees of increase in temperature compared to pre-industrial levels. It will not be difficult, it is already impossible.
Beyond what we might think in the face of the reduction in economic activity caused by the coronavirus pandemic, for two years we have been adding a new and unfortunate dimension to the dangers related to time, climate and water, with a wide range of combined impacts on human health and well-being. And now Putin’s war…
The summer has passed in the western hemisphere with unprecedented heat waves due to unstoppable climate change that is having serious repercussions in the socioeconomic development of the world; migrations and displacements; food security, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and also human diseases that are worsened by droughts, fires and floods derived from Climate Change, which even the biggest deniers can no longer ignore.
The world is on the brink of the abyss and the truth is that we are doing very little to stop it. Is there any hope that this COP 27 will be of any use? We definitely have very little chance that the same guys that got us this far are the ones that pull us off the cliff. As if to put the fox (always hungry to increase his multimillionaire interests) to take care of the sheep.
It can be understood that our life system cannot be eliminated with a stroke of the pen, but taking into account the warnings of “on the edge of the abyss” or the “red code” that all scientific reports have been citing for decades, it would be desirable to comply with concrete actions not only to reverse climate change, but to address the greatest global human emergency: protect the very existence of our species.
We have already crossed all the red lines. No report is needed to conclude that we are destroying the planet and endangering the future survival of humans and also of numerous plant and animal species. The responsibility (majority but not total) that human activities and the economic and life system implemented in recent decades have in this is unquestionable. The Earth that welcomes us is defending itself. Either we change now or it will change us with famine, homelessness, disease and displacement on a global scale that will change our world.
