Climate Summit: There Can Be No Cure Without A Diagnosis

Last week, the UN Climate Summit ended in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Even before it began, the leaders of the participating countries spoke in the spirit of the relevance of the climate agenda and called for following the previously signed agreements on the decarbonization of national economies.

Many speakers did not skimp on whipping up anxiety and tension. Humanity is heading towards climate hell, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said dramatically at the opening of the COP27 climate conference in Egypt.

The disagreements between the participants were so great that they had to work even at night. Because of this, the event dragged on for two days more than planned. It was also possible to agree on the creation of a compensation fund for the poorest countries.

“Millions of people around the world will now feel a glimmer of hope that a way will be quickly found to end their suffering,” Egyptian Foreign Minister and Summit President Sameh Shukri said at the closing plenary session.

What are these compensations? These are payments to the poorest countries, which, due to the weakness or lack of their own industry, cause the least damage to the climatic state of the planet, which were promised by Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, France, Germany, Scotland (separately from Great Britain), etc.

Shukri urged other developed countries to follow the example of those who have already pledged funding. Not all delegations were satisfied with the final agreement.

“We, together with many participants, have proposed a number of measures that would contribute to the achievement of peak emissions by 2025, as scientists advise. This text does not. A clear implementation of the goal of abandoning coal is not in this text. A clear commitment to phase out all fossil fuels is not in this text. In the last minutes, the text on energy has been loosened,” Alok Sharma, president of the previous COP26 conference from the UK, told the plenary.

However, the UK has its own ambitions, which are quite sensitively different from the priorities of other participants. In contrast, New Zealand previously announced around $12 million in funding to combat climate change impacts at COP27.

Austria plans to allocate $50 million to the fund over four years, Belgium is allocating $2.5 million to help Mozambique.

Under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the world will have to keep global average temperature increases "well below 2 degrees" by 2100 and "make efforts" to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Now, according to the UN, humanity is on the way to warming by 2.8 degrees.

What activity of the participants, what optimistic statements, what commendable unanimity, despite the understandable nuances. If you do not know the processes taking place outside the walls of the conference room, then there may be a distorted idea of ​​the real picture of what is happening, the real state of the struggle against the adverse impact of technogenic factors on the state of the climate.

Meanwhile, showing feigned concern for the climate and shedding crocodile tears from high stands, the same participating countries are actively negotiating with suppliers of traditional fuels, withdrawing thermal power plants operating on coal and fuel oil from mothballing, and plan to resume the operation of previously shut down nuclear power plants. This is in no way linked with the loud statements that, allegedly, the priority for them is the development of "green" energy.

The President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, spoke most frankly, I would even say, very cynically and mockingly: “Climate goals should not be more important than energy security, especially in countries where there is a winter period.”

Unfortunately, the main thing was left out of the brackets of the summit. Namely, the reason for the disastrous energy situation in Europe, which makes all the good wishes of the summit participants, all discussions and breaking copies into ephemeral Manilovism. The root of these troubles, like many others, lies in the vicious practice of the Europeans blindly following the US-imposed requirements to abandon Russian energy carriers, as well as following the concept of developing generation from renewable energy sources without a comprehensive assessment of their effectiveness. How can you treat a disease without eliminating its causes and even without making a diagnosis? No way.

Thus, summing up the results of the summit, we can confidently say: the conversation about nothing ended in nothing.

 

Inal Pliev for IA "Res"

Source: https://cominf.org/node/1166546912