The climate crisis in the world needs to be approached not just as a change happening but as an emergency that requires drastic action. It is not a matter in which nations can spend decades on talks and still believe they have ample time to procrastinate or deflect actions. It is clearly not a time for propping fictional ideas and carbon mathematics as though Mother Earth is ordered according to some calculus or algorithms.
The climate change COP25 conference held in Madrid was drawing to a close as this was penned. Not much progress has happened at the negotiations. Indeed, the technocrats who are saddled with actually negotiating the various clauses of the Paris Agreement’s rule book could not conclude work on a number of articles and pushed them over to be handled by the ministers who arrived in the second week. It should be noted that the ministers are basically politicians, and their inputs tend to be weighted heavily on political considerations.
Beginning from the evening of Tuesday, December 10, a pattern of selective consultations ensued with ministers and not with heads of delegations or negotiators. Considering that Article 6 of the Paris Agreement remains the thorny matter at this COP, observers feared that some of the ministers will be unfamiliar with the details and may indeed be unable to adequately negotiate it due to its complex and technical nature.
Issues expected to be handled by the ministers include adaptation financing in the context of the cooperation under Article 6 and use of the approaches for other international mitigation purposes; delivering on the overall mitigation in global emissions; and the governance of the framework for non-market approaches.
There is a general tendency for nations to strenuously work towards avoiding responsibility. The current government of the USA shows clearly that nations can simply walk away from the multilateral space and allow the world take care of its problems. The only snag in this way of thinking is that unlike the nuclear deterrent scenario where nations hoped to beat others by arming themselves and projecting possibilities of utter destruction, the impending climate catastrophe does not offer the possibility of any nation emerging as the winner or even as a survivor.
It is doubtful that anyone can survive extreme temperature increases, neither can anyone hope to survive for long under flood waters. You would think that this sobering reality would force politicians to have a rethink concerning their posturing at the climate negotiations.
Climate politicians are churning out new seductive words to obscure intentions and to market ideas that would help them avoid both action and responsibility. The narrative merchants bring up concepts such as nature-based solutions (NBS) which, on face value, is hard to fault. How can you reject any action that is based on nature, that respects nature and that works with and not against nature? The catch is that NBS does not mean of that. At the COP, there were side events that showcased how to include nature in Nationally Determined Contributions. Another one listed Shell, Chevron and BP as founding members for “Natural Climate Solutions.”
So-called nature-based solutions include carbon offsetting mechanisms that allow polluters to carry on polluting while claiming that their pollution or emissions are offset by mitigating activities such as tree planting or corralling off of forests as carbon sinks. Indeed, the NBS can be understood as the wheels of carbon stock exchanges.
When nations speak of carbon neutrality, they are basically speaking of solving the climate crisis through mathematics and not through any real climate action. It does not suggest changes in modes of production and consumption. The same can be said of having Net Zero carbon emissions.
As the climate negotiation drags on, we must remind ourselves that it is essential for us to understand what we are fighting for before we can forge the real solution. The acceptance of carbon offsetting and similar notions as epitomes of carbon colonialism give reasons for worry. The burden of climate action is being forced on the victims without any regard for historical responsibilities, without regard for justice. This posture rides on the same track as slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism and their cousin, neoliberalism.
Climate activists made a loud noise outside the plenary hall on Wednesday, December 11 voicing the critical need for rich, polluting nations, to remove their heads from the sands and take real climate action. They were urged to quit their push for carbon markets and tricks to aid double counting when it comes to climate finance. They were reminded that there is a climate debt that has neither been acknowledged nor paid.
The investment of $1.9 trillion in fossil fuel projects and the expenditure of close to $2 trillion in warfare annually were held up as obscene reminders that contributing a mere $100 billion for climate finance ought not to give the world sleepless nights if there is any seriousness to use the hours spent at the COP to tackle the root causes of global warming, cut emissions at source, help build resilience and pull the vulnerable from their miseries.
As Asad Rehman of War on Want said at the Social Space during the COP, “the struggle to solve the climate crisis must be tied to the struggle against inequality, neoliberalism and for economic justice. The solution is not as simple as greening our economies or having more electric automobiles. It cannot be about greening the global north at the expense of the global south.”
He warned that anything short of the needed system change is nothing but a precursor of a new wave of green colonialism.
Nnimmo Bassey is Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF)
