EDITORIAL: We’ve long since come to the point where you don’t really need high profile glitzy events like COP29 — where many climate change advocates fly on fuel-guzzling jets — to understand that the real problem is no longer raising further awareness about climate as much as raising the right amount of money to combat it; especially from the right countries and financial institutions.
That’s why Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus hit the nail on the head when he lamented, in an interview on the sidelines of the summit, that it was “very humiliating” for poor countries to come and beg for money to “fix… (the) problem that others caused for them”.
“Why should we be dragged here to negotiate? You know the problem,” he added, referring to the obvious fact that it’s the rich, industrial bloc that’s responsible for much, if not all, of the current climate carnage which, ironically, poor countries suffer far more from. Yet it’s the latter that’s forced to hop around the world with a begging bowl, hoping to raise the kinds of investments that are needed to overcome it.
Pakistan, just like Bangladesh, is also dead in the eye of the climate storm, even though its carbon footprint is negligible. That’s why there was considerable weight in Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s demand that climate finance should be grant-based, not in the form of loans that push poor countries further into a very dark corner.
“I strongly feel that climate finance must be grant-based and not add to the debt burden of vulnerable developing countries,” he very rightly pointed out to a developed world that is just unwilling to notice this obvious fact. He also said that the so-called Paris pledges, made a good 10 years ago, have yet to be honoured, reminding everybody how rich countries love to grab the headlines by making fancy claims that they later fail to live up to.
Then there is the embarrassing breakdown within developed countries themselves about how to proceed, and also about the need to proceed at all. COP29 saw more diplomatic disputes come out into the open than substantial agreements about properly financing climate control.
And with the return of one Donald Trump to the White House with his “drill baby drill” mantra, due in January 2025, the richest and most powerful country in the world is expected not just to pull the plug on climate finance but also turn away from recognising its impact and importance altogether.
Europe’s biggest and richest countries, on the other hand, are combating political breakdowns and impending recessions of their own, and can offer very little tangible help even if they want to; which they do not when it comes to financing climate control in poor and worst affected countries in a way that will show results.
So, it’s not immediately clear what COP29 really hopes to accomplish. The real cost of hosting it hasn’t been publicly announced yet, but such summits typically require substantial investment due to the scale of logistics, security, and infrastructure needed to accommodate an attendance of 40,000 to 50,000 participants, which include global leaders, scientists, and activists. COP28, for comparison, attracted around 83,000 attendees and required significant financial and logistical support to facilitate its operations.
Also, let’s not for that 2024 is the first calendar year in which the 1.5C warning limit enshrined in the Paris Agreement, which seemed such a stretch way back in 2015, was surpassed. It’s already seen the hottest-ever day and month and is expected to end as the hottest-ever year as well; hence UN chief Antonio Guterres’s reference to the “masterclass in climate destruction” that is playing out, which also grabbed headlines around the world.
Yet, at the end of the day, it’s rich nations responsible for the damage to world climate that hold the key, and the money, to do something about. And while they make a lot of noise, they refuse to do what is really needed to make a difference.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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