'Our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible. We are on a highway to climate
hell with one foot still on the accelerator.' These were the words
spoken by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in welcoming
delegates to the 27th Conference of Parties on climate change (COP27) at
Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt
(Nov 8-16) .
He
went on to call it the 'defining issue of our age' adding 'Greenhouse
gas emissions keep rising ... It is unacceptable, outrageous and
self-defeating to put it on the back burner.' 'The science is clear,'
he warned. 'Any hope of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees
(Celsius) means achieving global net zero emissions by 2050 ... But
that 1.5 degree goal is on life support -- and the machines are
rattling.'
By the way, scientists are now giving us a 50% probability of breaching 1.5 C. It is after all only 0.4C higher than the current 1.1C rise above preindustrial levels. Guterres also called for a phase out of coal by 2030 in OECD countries and 2040 everywhere else. Last year at COP26, the language on coal was changed at the end from 'phase out' to 'phase down' at the insistence of China and India, the world's largest users of coal.
Guterres hoped for a 'Climate Solidarity Pact between developed and developing economies and especially developed and emerging economies.' He noted 'a particular responsibility [for US and China] to join efforts to make this pact a reality.'
'Humanity has a choice' he ended, 'Cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact.'
Joe
Biden has appointed former Senator and presidential candidate John
Kerry as Special Envoy to the Climate Conference. Kerry promptly
announced a plan where developing countries can sell carbon credits to
corporations to offset their own emissions.
The idea is not new and the criticism of this sort of plan has always been that rich countries or their corporations are paying for someone else to cut emissions, instead of reducing their own. Some attach the label 'greenwashing' to this kind of scheme.
Rich
countries have already offered to provide some kind of assistance to
poorer nations to cut emissions, and up to $11 billion has been pledged
but the money has yet to materialize. The public and therefore
legislators are loath to
dole out more money to countries viewed as sinkholes. Trump's definition was more vulgar.
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