Open in full screen mode French President François Hollande and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the final plenary session of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) at Le Bourget.
Thanks to the Paris Agreement, all countries now know what their neighbors are doing in the fight against climate change.
Indeed, the 195 countries that signed this agreement are required to transmit their targets and the quantity of their emissions to the UN in a public register. All countries can therefore know who are the dunces in the group and who are the good students.
This transparency creates an absolutely essential element of climate action world: moral pressure.
By presenting themselves every year at the COP, in front of the cameras and microphones of the international press and in front of the representatives of other States, all countries are subject to the weight of #x27;a reputation that they must preserve. No country wants to be seen as standing in the way.
This pressure, which would not be as strong or as visible without the spotlight of the COPs, necessarily encourages the actors present to improve their ambition and raises the bar for action ever higher.
Climate change is unique in that no country can claim to have the solution to this problem.
Let's imagine a country that reduces its GHG emissions to zero tomorrow morning. Despite this virtuous policy, it would no less be affected by the effects of climate change, fueled by emissions from other countries. Climate disruption is a universal problem.
From this arises the obligation to find a common solution, a solution, above all, which must include the countries in development.
Rich countries have developed for more than a century by burning fossil fuels. They therefore bear a heavy responsibility for the phenomenon of climate change. And yet, we see that it is the countries of the South that are suffering the greatest effects of these upheavals.
The 54 African countries emit barely 3% greenhouse gas emissions. For small islands and small island states, it is less than 1% of the total. Tuvalu, in the South Pacific, emits so little GHG that it is not even included in the statistics.
For these countries most vulnerable to climate hazards, the COPs are the only forum where their voice is heard on such a large scale.
During these summits, representatives of Chad or Bolivia have the same speaking time as Chinese, European or American delegates. Year after year, we hear representatives of these small countries describe their reality and tell stories that need to be heard.
For some time now, we have seen the countries of the South unite more. They take up more space in negotiations, they are listened to more, they make gains – however insufficient they may be – and they manage to influence, as best they can, the course of things.
Over the years, COPs have helped amplify their voices. It’s not nothing, even if it’s not enough.
Open in full screen mode Brazil's President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends a COP27 meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, November 17, 2022.
If there is one thing that the United Nations climate conferences have allowed us to better understand over the years, it is that the climate crisis goes far beyond just environmental issues.
It combines public and private international finance, international aid, scientific cooperation, technology transfer, agricultural knowledge, indigenous peoples and multiple other tools that aim to solve a difficult but fundamental problem: how to convince human beings to change their way of life in order to return to a carbon-free planet?
Few current concerns are the subject of such broad and complex negotiation as the issue of climate change. The simple fact of bringing together all the countries on the planet – some extremely poor, others at war, others ruled by dictatorships or populated by indigenous minorities, riddled with debt or enriched by exploitation oil – in a climate agreement is an achievement in itself.
If only for this improbable meeting of such divergent interests, the United Nations climate conferences deserve our full attention.
UN climate conferences have this particularity in that they are also open to civil society, scientists, representatives of local governments, the private sector and to rising youth.
This openness outside the simple official circle of diplomats is to be welcomed.
However, in recent years, the COPs have transformed – alongside the diplomatic work that is done there – into a real trade fair for the benefit of those who want to give a green tint to the products they sell. Thus, during the COP27 in Egypt, lucrative natural gas supply contracts were signed between African and European countries, under the pretext that it is a source of energy. x27;transition energy.
There were more than 600 accredited fossil fuel industry lobbyists at COP27 last year. How many will there be this year in the United Arab Emirates, the seventh largest oil producer in the world?
The president of COP28 defends the idea that we must avoid excluding representatives of fossil fuel companies from the meeting, under the pretext that they are part of the solution. Many are accredited under the banner of national delegations, which gives them the right to pink accreditation, which gives access to negotiation sessions.
Their presence is far from trivial. At COP28, discussions will revolve around the idea of including in the final decision a sentence that would indicate in black and white the need for countries to move away from fossil fuels.
Can we imagine for a single moment that the representatives of this industry, duly accredited, will not lobby to defend their interests?
Open in full screen mode COP28 President-designate Ahmed al-Jaber and UN Special Envoy Michael R. Bloomberg as they announce the holding a local climate action summit at COP28 in Dubai in December 2023, alongside local leaders.
There are several things the United Nations can do if it wants to restore some credibility to the COPs in the eyes of the public.
The first would be to limit the presence of lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry. That seems to me a minimum if we want to hope for better results in terms of climate.
We could also limit the number of participants. Let's be honest: many delegates go there to parade or take a trip. With a limited number of accreditations, governments and organizations would be forced to make choices.
The UN could also reward countries that provide evidence of respecting their commitments. We could decide, for example, to give speaking privileges and more important diplomatic roles to countries that arrive at the COP with firm commitments to improve their climate action (no false promises or recycled announcements) or with the evidence that they respected their targets. Giving pride of place to countries that act for real and meet expectations would be a way of making these summits more effective and more relevant.
However, the COPs are only one driver of action among several others. The G7, the G20, the new BRICS Plus, the Asia-Pacific countries, the European Union and its partners – and so on – are all forums for leading the fight against climate change.
COPs have many flaws. However, so far, no one has come up with a better way to contain this uniquely complex problem.
And I repeat: what would the climate situation be if there were not these meetings?
To ask the question is to answer it.
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Étienne Leblanc (View profile)Étienne LeblancFollow