Helm Talks - energy climate infrastructure & more22 Nov 2022

Greta Thunberg was right about COP27

Greta was right. COP27 has not made serious progress on mitigating climate change. Instead of concentrating on addressing the failures at Glasgow to set nationally determined contributions (NDCs) matching the 1.5˚C target, COP27 has been all about the past, about reparations for loss and damage. More pious words, 36,000 attendees and a new fund are not going to make much impact, and in the meantime the world carries on relying on fossil fuels for 80% of its energy, the rest being largely hydro and nuclear. It is hard to imagine that voters in the developed democratic economies are going to vote for even 1% GDP to fund the transfers to the developed world, given that so far the Climate Fund has offered less than the annual dividend of Saudi Aramco, and even this has not been delivered. The COPs have not halted the relentless increases of about 2 parts per million in the carbon concentration in the atmosphere, the only measure that counts. Rather than one more heave, what is needed is to rebase on the polluter-pays principle, and therefore on carbon consumption. That would mean paying for carbon emissions and natural capital destruction, and would put us on a sustainable consumption path. COP27 has not even edged us forward and another 27 COPs probably won’t. Time to change the model – urgently.

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