The lexicon describes the verb ‘cop out’ as avoiding or neglecting problems, responsibilities or commitments. The noun ‘cop-out’ represents the act or instance of copping out. The intransitive verb and the noun will both be at play this week at the #COP28 in Dubai. Typically, countries collect, converse, commiserate and concur to coalesce on a consensus to kick the can down the road.
The Conference of Parties aka COP is meeting for the 28th time since the Berlin summit in 1995. The track record of outcomes from COP summits is illuminated by the gap between grand declarations and grand inaction. For sure there has been a litany of pious intent, studies and reports. And yet, emission of greenhouse gases, a full 50 per cent above the pre-industrial era in 2022, hit record highs in 2023. The consequence is vividly visible across an array of indicators.
In September, Gianpaolo Palladino, who has been assessing the retreat of glaciers at the Gran Paradiso National Park in Italy for decades, flew in for another assessment. His words signal an ominous turn in the trajectory of climate change: “For 30 years I had landed on ice and this was the first year I landed on rocks.” His report underlines that there was no trace of residual winter snow left on the glacier.
Glaciers, a reliable marker of climate change, are retreating across the world. Greenland is home to over 20,000 glaciers. Historical photographs show glaciers are receding twice as fast as in the 20th Century. Peru, home to two-thirds of the world’s tropical glaciers, has lost over half its glacier surface in the past six decades. In the US, climatologists worry that the North Cascade glacier is losing area and cannot survive long with no rain accumulation.
The spectre is visible in data emanating from the Arctic to Antarctica. Studies by the National Snow and Ice Data Center show that the Arctic region has in the past four decades lost 1.99 million sq km, or roughly the area of Mexico, of ice. This July Antarctic ice had “declined faster than the 1981 to 2010 average” and receded below average by 2.6 million sq km, or roughly an area as large as Argentina.
Unsurprisingly, the world is witnessing extreme weather events. Italy witnessed 11 extreme weather events per day in the third hottest year since 1800. Major parts of Europe went through heat waves. North America battled floods, record-breaking forest fires and high temperatures—Phoenix, Arizona had 40°C-plus temperatures for 54 days in a row.
The flooding at Burning Man in Nevada in September found the devotees of ‘self-reliance’ get a ringside view of extreme weather. Last week saw Rio de Janeiro record 43°C as Brazil issued heat wave warnings in 3,000 towns. The World Meteorological Organisation declared July and August 2023 as the hottest ever while the US weather administrator described September and October 2023 as the warmest in 174 years.
There is no dearth of agreement, articulation or call for action on the implications of climate change. Last fortnight, French President Emanuel Macron noted at the Paris Peace Forum the “irreversible retreat of some 200,000 glaciers” across the world and described the melting as an “unprecedented challenge for humanity”. On Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, on a visit to Antarctica, urged the world to “act immediately” and declared, “What happens in Antarctica doesn’t stay in Antarctica”.
Action has scarcely followed eloquent expression. The saga of melting glaciers and risks has been outlined in a series of reports. The 2019 IPCC report underlined the risks of “global-scale glacier mass loss, permafrost thaw, and decline in snow cover and Arctic Sea ice extent”. The 2021 IPCC report states “human activity is driving the retreat of glaciers” and that the phenomenon of “all of the world’s glaciers retreating synchronously is unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years”. The 2022 IPCC report observed that changes in Arctic ecosystems are approaching irreversibility.
In November 2022, the theme of the COP27 at Sharm-El-Sheikh was ‘Together for Implementation’. The UNFCCC listed “establishing a fund for loss and damage, maintaining clear intention to keep 1.5 degrees within reach, holding businesses and institutions to account, mobilising finances for developing countries and making the pivot to implementation” as the key takeaways. For effect, the UNFCCC added, “Climate pledges aren’t worth the paper they’re written on if they aren’t taken off the page and turned into concrete action.” When last reviewed, the pledges were still on paper.
ALSO READ | Biden-Xi talk the talk and hum 'Bad Blood'
The past is the prologue to the future. A global stocktaking report states that the world is not on track to achieve the goals set out in Paris and cautions that the window to “limit warming to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels” is rapidly narrowing. Indeed, on Monday, the UNEP warned, “Nations must go further than current Paris pledges or face global warming of 2.5-2.9° C.”
The tragedy is that those who are least responsible for the emissions are paying the highest price. Worse, tyrants and democrats alike use climate change as cover for failures in governance. Climate change is located at the intersection of conflicting geopolitical and domestic compulsions. It is a global challenge and calls for global statesmanship. Meanwhile, summits will roll on and roll out as cop-outs.
(shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com)
The Third Eye/ Shankkar Aiyar
Author of The Gated Republic, Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit Revolution, and Accidental India