The metaphor of the glass half-full and half-empty can’t be used this time to describe the outcome of the COP. The glass has actually revealed to be so empty to undermine the function of the big International forum itself.
In the face of the cry of alarm increasingly desperate contained in the scientific reports on climate and the loud screams of the youngsters of Fridays for Future in the squares all over the World, or the “now, now, now!” of the youngsters of Extinction Rebellion chained to a boat in front of the COP entrance, the global politics could only lower its gaze and admit in a whisper its inadequacy.
Part of the problem is related to a negotiation process based on a common consensus, where the opposition backed from a single Country can block every development. And at the table of the tasters, well resolute and not much disguised, there were more than one.
From the USA, led by a President who formalised the willingness to go out from the Paris Agreement, to Australia, where the conservative Prime minister Scott Morrison in August 2018 unseated his party colleague Malcom Turnball precisely because of the latter’s commitment for climate change. Two Nations in which the fossil fuels lobby are strong and determined to impede every path toward a low CO2 emissions future.
Then there is the Brazil of Bolsonaro, characterized by an impressive change of direction in the Amazonia management compared to the previous government, that may have represented the most retrograde Country in this COP. A Country in which extremely grave things are going on, with a wave of assassins of Indios and activists and threats against the journalists that has still little space in the media and the world public opinion.
After all Ricardo Salles, the Brazilian Minister of the Environment, is well known for his denier position about climate and it shouldn’t surprise the strong opposition that his delegation sustained in the final plenary trying to block the inclusion in the text of “Chile Madrid Time for Action” of the articles 30 and 31 of pure scientific level.
In these articles it was highlighted the importance of the oceans, as a central part of the Earth’s climate system, for which it is necessary to grant the integrity of the marine and coastal ecosystems, and there was a request to initiate a dialogue in occasion of the next preparatory meeting of the COP26 in June, to understand how to make stronger the mitigation and adaptation action in this context.
It is clear how, in front of the willingness to block even just a dialogue about how to face the issues of oceans and coastal zones, it is inconceivable to hope to obtain concrete commitments and actions.
And so, the final plenary came two days late, the worst record ever, and with the COP President, the Chilean Carolina Schmidt, who struck by the weariness fell two times in a lapse hardly encouraging. She announced the beginning of the work of the 25th century instead of the 25th COP, unintentionally transferring the image of a politics jammed for centuries by the inability to establish a global action against climate change.
To increase the confusion there was also the UNFCCC informatic system completely gone haywire, with official documentation unavailable on the official website and compelled to be uploaded in a Dropbox folder temporary made externally accessible. Inside the folder the documents were uploaded in the correct version only during the debate, without giving the delegates the possibility to read and study them carefully.
All of this, in a room that was relentlessly emptying as a sandglass, with Countries devoid of representatives or with delegations reduced to one or two representatives.
The focus of this COP was the art.6 of the Paris Agreement, designed to describe the rules with which to build new market-based tools such as the evolution, for example, of the CDM or the Emission Trading. A crucial theme, located right in the middle between the need to foster the mitigation actions about GHG emissions in the Countries in which they cost less, maximising the global emissions reduction, and the risk of double counting and thus of greenwashing. This is the conclusion of two weeks (and two days extra) of debating: the discussion will continue in the next COP 26 in Glasgow.
Nothing even about Loss and Damage, the aid mechanism for the poor countries in which the situation is so degraded that not even the adaptation to climate change is possible.
Just as much, nothing has been achieved on the front of the long-term finances, this one as well postponed until the next COP26.
All too clear the message of the representative of Tuvalu, Pacific islands that every year see first-hand the rising of the ocean levels.
The same delegate, that in 2009 contributed to prevent a Copenhagen Agreement void of commitments from passing, if not about the readiness of the rich world to make available 30 billions for the developing countries, recalling in a biblical way the unwillingness to sell his own people for 30 dinars has shot a dart to Trump’s US.
The USA proposed to include in the Paris Agreement, instead of the UNFCCC, the Loss and Damage aid mechanism for the poor and troubled countries.
The chief of the delegation on the Pacific Islands highlighted that this would mean to exclude from any responsibility those who won’t be part of the Paris Agreement, meaning the USA, with an irresponsibility behaviour coming right from one of the main historic responsible for climate change; behaviour that he has also described as a real and proper crime against humanity.
In this general failure of the international politics it should be underlined the important step forward made by the European Union that, with the Green Deal presented last Wednesday, in which it is declared the own willingness to achieve the zero emissions by 2050 with a scenery for 2030, not set out in detail yet, surely more ambitious than the current commitment to reduce the emission by 40% most likely higher than 50%.
The UE reiterates the willingness of an ambitious commitment about climate change that must not be seen as utopian, but absolutely achievable and able to make our society develop in a positive way. This is a chance fully comprehensible for those who attended the COP rooms in the last two weeks, where to the politics’ inability to find shared negotiated solutions, it has been opposed the evidence of an economic and regional politics system definitely oriented to a relevant and quick change.
It won’t be a surprise to see the debate at european level about a duty system meant to penalise the entrance of products coming from the countries not adhering to the climate agreement grow in a significant way in the next months.
Because the chance is happening now, and the ineffectiveness of the COP won’t be able to stop it.
