COP-28: Time for old habits to die; talk less & do more

The Conferences of the Parties or COP, as known popularly, – is an annual global summit to discuss, debate and decide upon the unanimous action to be taken upon global warming, climate change, biodiversity conservation and other environmental issues across the globe. The Dubai Summit (UAE) or the COP28 concluded recently was the 28^th Summit since 1994.

It is often said that every year, in spite of holding COP summits, the deterioration of the natural environment has been going on as it is. So what’s the point in having mere discussions? Therefore, it is important to understand the background and history, because introspection can only be done, when we see the complete picture.

The journey so far

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was 1^st established in the year 1988. The IPCC conducted data collection, research and comprehensive study for two years, which resulted in the release of their first assessment report in 1990, which concluded that “anthropogenic activities are the key cause of global warming and climate change”. Now this wasn’t the first time that the world came to know about this fact, the scientific community has been reporting, discussing and highlighting the same since the 1950s, but still this was a landmark achievement, because this time it was an official intergovernmental report. It was politically accepted by member countries.

The report was alarming, but it still took the global political leaders two more years to form the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992. We need to understand that the imbalances in the fine natural ecosystems are translated by people as a ‘local natural disaster’ not a global phenomenon, which results in this lethargy and indecisiveness of the political leadership.

The key takeaways from the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June, 1992 was the formation of three unique UN bodies on Biodiversity, Desertification and Climate Change (or the UNFCCC), which lead to the first ever COP Summit at Berlin, Germany in 1995, This was attended by a total of 118 member countries.

A peek into the past summits 

So, if we look at the report card summarized above, there’s absolutely no doubt that we’ve been moving quite slow towards progress.

No time to ponder over 

It’s high time for the world & the world leaders to work on the path and pace correction too. We can’t work on only emission reduction, because switching over from fossil fuels to renewables wouldn’t happen overnight and we don’t have that luxury of time today.

Rich & poor nations, developed & developing nations, global north & global south pointing fingers on each other, is leading us nowhere. We’ve seen 28 summits now. The roadmap is only talking about reducing emissions, switching over from fossils to renewable energy sources, all of which will take another half a millennium. Scientific community warned about global warming way back in the 1960s and we’ve already spent almost 70 years playing the blame game.

The only way out is to work on “removal” of legacy emissions, to rebuild a sustainable planet. We’ve got to restore the Water, Air and Soil, back to their native conditions, to restore the climate.

(The author is an think tank on ecological rejuvenation & sustainable development)