Although they want to cover up with image washes, the final document of COP27 has been a new failure. In the absence of the political leaders of the main polluters on the planet (Russia, China, India, Canada, Australia…) it was foreseeable that the result would not be up to the climatic emergency.
In this edition, the presence of consultants and lobbyists linked to large energy corporations has been overwhelming and their pressure on the negotiating table has been considered by some NGOs as “ethically amoral”.
The 236 groups linked and financed by Chevron, BP, Exon Mobil and Shell have achieved more representation than the ten countries most affected by the climate crisis (25% more than during the Glasgow summit).
A heresy, according to climate justice associations that have been marginalized by the organization; They were not authorized to demonstrate outside the Lamborghini Center (the luxury car brand that, together with Coca-Cola, the most plastic-polluting multinational on the planet, has participated in sponsoring the event).
Either these sponsorships are expelled and the presence of lobbyists is regulated or the environmentalist and ecologist NGOs will refuse to make economic efforts to travel and register in these summits intervened by the large energy corporations that want to continue exploiting the enormous reserves of fossil resources that are They are found underground, at the bottom of the sea and under the arctic ice.
And they continue to do so with the support of states and financial institutions that cover them up with grants that in 2021 reached more than $700,000. It is hard to believe that these same companies will help finance the damage caused by climate change in the most vulnerable countries, affected by droughts, hurricanes, floods and fires.
My opinion is that journalists have to be honest and explain the reality to our public opinion: We will not be able to mitigate climate change if Russia continues to opt, as it is doing, for new oil and gas exploitation.
We will not succeed in mitigating climate change if Russia continues to opt, as it is, for new oil and gas developments
The associations Global Forst Coalition and the Russian Social Ecological Union and The Friends of the Earth have denounced the government of President Vladimir Putin before the Supreme Court of the federation because these macro projects could cause an increase of 4ºC in the average global temperature and cause more of 700,000 deaths. Putin, according to these activists, is violating the Constitution itself and the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Ukrainian War has overstated the contribution of natural gas undermining climate objectives. Exploitation, transportation, liquefaction and gasification projects approved between 2021 and 2050 would add 1,900 million tons of carbon dioxide per year from 2030, according to the Global Carbon Project, made up of one hundred scientists from eighty international laboratories that study the cycle of carbon.
This same entity has denounced that at the end of this year the levels in the atmosphere of three of the main greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) will reach all-time highs.
More perplexities: the magazine “Energy Policy” has identified 425 “climate bombs”; 195 oil exploration projects and 230 new coal mines distributed among 48 states, mainly from the G-20, which can generate potential emissions that represent twice the current CO2 emissions. If the Paris Agreements and those that have been achieved in Sharm al-Sheikh are not stopped, they will come to nothing.
The Green Pact and the famous New Green Deal promoted by the European Commission will end up becoming a political and media “ecowashing”, as can be interpreted by the desperate overacting of its vice president Franz Timmernans threatening to abandon the summit.
COP27 has been a new disappointment. He has avoided speaking forcefully against the exploitation of fossil fuels and the subsidies they receive.
António Guterres has carried out inflammatory proclamations but that have ended up being a toast to the sun
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, has made inflammatory proclamations that have ended up being a toast to the sun: “Enough of treating nature like a toilet”; “We are driving on a highway that goes directly to hell.”
However, neither he nor any of the leaders present at COP27 have faced up to what is already being seen as the key to explaining so much inaction: the lack of a World Environment Organization with the authority to penalize and compel states that have already energy corporations to comply with the signed agreements.
Movements for climate justice also call for the creation of an International Criminal Court for the Environment to judge ecocides. We still do not have international structures that guarantee global, effective and efficient management of the fight to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
The COP27 anecdote was given by President Lula da Silva with his proposal to organize the 2025 summit in the heart of the Amazon jungle.
However, and before his goal is approved, he should apologize to Humanity for having authorized during his previous mandates (2003-2011) the gigantic Bello Monde dam (one of the largest in the world) in the Xingu basin. , a tributary of the Amazon.
For its construction, 500 square km of jungle had to be flooded, and 50,000 inhabitants of the Altamira region were left without land; They were peasants, traditional fishing families (ribeirinhos) and dozens of indigenous tribes.
Lula arrived in Sharm al-Sheikh with a private plane belonging to the Brazilian businessman José Seripieri Filho; a highly polluting aircraft. A disastrous symbol for a president who wants to empathize with the environmentalism of the 21st century.
And to think that the next COP will be in the emirate of Dubai, one of the most corrupt and wasteful of energy places on the planet!
Santiago VILANOVA
He is a journalist and writer
