The next UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) will begin Sunday in Egypt, lasting about two weeks.
At Scotland’s COP26 last year, countries agreed to deliver stronger commitments this year, including updated national plans with more ambitious targets. However, only 23 out of 193 countries have submitted their plans to the UN so far. New Zealand has not yet submitted its plan (officially known as Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs).
In pledges made through September, the NDCs would reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases only 7% from 2019 levels by 2030, says a report compiled by the World Resources Institute. Countries must strengthen their targets by about six times that, or at least 43%, to align with what the U.N. says is enough to reach the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting the global temperature rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees F).
COP27 is occurring against a backdrop of recent science reporting on the ‘worse than ever’ state of the planet’s emissions profile and consequent impacts.
Atmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases warming our planet – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – all reached new record highs in 2021, according to a new report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization. The agency’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin warns of the biggest year-on-year jump in methane concentrations in 2021 since systematic measurements began nearly 40 years ago.
And a UN report prepared for COP27 says the planet is on track to warm by an average of 2.1 to 2.9 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels, by 2100. That’s far higher than the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius and it crosses the threshold beyond which scientists say the likelihood of catastrophic climate impacts significantly increases – from Arctic melting to human health.
Here’s just one example with respect to impacts on human health. As reported in Nature Climate Change, researchers looked at 830 publications with over 3,000 examples where infectious diseases influenced by climatic hazards made worse by greenhouse-gas emissions.
They found that climate change has aggravated 218, or 58%, of the 375 infectious diseases listed in the Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System. The total rises to 277 when including non-transmissible conditions, such as asthma and poisonous-snake or insect bites.
A major focus of COP27 – beyond receiving more national plans that are certain to fall short of the commitments needed to actually curb emissions – will be global equity.
This involves ‘loss and damage’ financing so that countries at the frontlines of the crisis can deal with the consequences of climate change that go beyond what they can adapt to, and the fulfilment of the promise of $100 billion every year from adaptation finance, from developed nations, to low-income countries.
While we constantly hear alarmed breastbeating from politicians about the speculative ‘economic costs’ of getting serious about emissions reductions (i.e., actual reductions, not cosmetic offsets), too little attention has been paid to the real costs already being incurred by inadequate action on mitigation.
Two recent reports bring these real costs of doing too little into perspective.
Forbes reports a study in Science Advances indicating that heat waves propelled by climate change have cost the global economy at least US$16 trillion since the early 1990s, and perhaps as much as US$65 trillion.
Says Forbes, “The researchers found that the costs of extreme heat—which has an impact on human health, productivity and agricultural output—have not been borne evenly around the world, with the poorest countries suffering the most.” Which circles back to the equity issue COP27 will prioritise.
And the World Economic Forum – noted handwringing playpen for the world’s corporate, financial and political elite – says that, in 2021 alone, extreme weather events cost the global economy an estimated $329 billion. Between 2000-2015, the number of people worldwide at risk from flooding increased by up to 24% … again, with most of those individuals living in the poorest countries contributing the least to global warming.
The Forum says 44% of global GDP in cities ($31 trillion) is estimated to be at risk of disruption from nature loss, and 1.4 billion urban residents are threatened by natural hazards.
As with its predecessors, COP27 will doubtless produce numerous pledges from countries regarding ‘urgency’ about this or that aspect of the climate change challenge.
But the only thing that might matter is the official updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) on emissions reduction expected from each nation. And of course these are only rhetorical unless/until implemented back home.
What can we do?
Our job as individuals is firstly and most importantly holding our Government’s feet to the fire, pressing for serious emissions reductions to be required across all sectors.
Sure, do your personal downsizing and recycling, count your carbon (join the 2,000 Watt Society), but, as conscience alleviating as that might be, don’t kid yourself that it is enough.
Time is running out … get mad, get political!
The lack of comments is deafening.