In the middle of last year, UN Secretary General Antonio Guetteres informed the world that the time to face Climate Change was now. Based on facts and figures, a special scientific team dismissed previous assumptions with the dire warning that even a 1% rise in global warming would wipe out several nations by this century. The timing seemed strange, given the world was grimly battling the pandemic. Bodies lying indisposed in homes were of greater immediate concern.
Nonetheless, countries and experts made the best of quarantine in COP26 and came up with a watered down list of to-dos. The agreed way forward was a progress report summit this year. Since then nature has unleashed its fury through floods, boiling temperatures, and droughts. All of this didn’t prevent one of the UN’s Security Council members going rogue. The following action and reaction has sent the world’s economy on a tailspin. Now, with less than two months to go before COP27, there’s an almost eerie silence pervading.
The thinking brows permanently furrowed from doing so will list realities that have catapulted position of priorities. There’s little prospect of any platform, let alone COP27 dwelling on the combined devil’s concoction of personal ego, falsely placed ambition, and downright surrender to business having provided the perfect grounds for red-faced failure.
The Greens haven’t come up with alternatives, academics are burrowed into meaningless details of how to make the unworkable work, and the media is short of experts that can say something positive. The close-to-centurion Richard Attenborough continues the one-man battle to balance natural history with climate change knowing his passion will die if the latter of his two agendas fails. With nothing more to achieve he can only try and give.
King Charles III has been “advised” by British Prime Minister Liz Truss not to attend. One can imagine the kingly dilemma given his long-standing commitment to address the issue. Ms Truss is fighting for her political life and may, in the coming days, take more measures that are likely to be in sharp contrast to the UKs previously made commitments. There’s a sinking feeling that, like attendance at the Tory conference, there will be a lot of empty chairs.
The conflict in Europe is threatening to boil over to Asia. The consequential economic impact cannot but affect the “agreed” list of to-dos. The new set of priorities are looking ominous. Warnings on food shortages, famines, and recession will outweigh whatever investments and funds to be made available had been set aside.
The far-right agenda fast sweeping the world isn’t sympathetic to lofty goals. Countries most vulnerable to climate change have had to count their pennies in facing the pandemic. Their dwindling fund reserves are under extreme pressures as they are and can no longer survive unless the promised make-up resources committed by the major polluters come through. Their previous promises had worn thin -- the COP26 numbers committed had looked unrealistic at the time. In present-day reality, and announcements of cutbacks to aid, the “unrealism” has become clearer.
Ashen-faced World Food Program executives had stood in the Afghan desert last year pleading for support to help its people fight the bitter winter. Europe faces an icy winter in 2022 itself and doesn’t have answers. They did at least have the wherewithal to climb out of the mess from flooding and extreme heat. Others aren’t as fortunate, as Pakistan is finding out.
The flooding in a country that never knew what that meant is another stark reminder of what that scientific team had warned about last year. Three hundred thousand Somalians face a famine, and three decades of fighting that has seen no winners, compounded by a drought that has left the population, especially children, emaciated. There’s a recession on the horizon. Aid money can’t be found. Billions are available to fund wars designed to inflate egos while humanity is firmly pushed into the back seat.
Mahmudur Rahman is a writer, columnist, broadcaster, and communications specialist.
