Climate change is everyone’s business
The world needs concerted, collaborative and impactful action to address climate change. The United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference or COP27 happening on November 6-18, 2022 in Egypt, aspires to be the “turning point where the world came together and demonstrated the requisite political will to take on the climate challenge.”
Recently, we experienced nature’s wrath manifested through the severe tropical storm “Paeng”. Although “Paeng” may be classified as a natural disaster that occurs every year, climate change may have aggravated the damage brought about by the typhoon.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that the world needs to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030 in order to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. In another report, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are now at new record levels.
Despite the alarming data on climate change, governments of different countries continue to ignore the call to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Despite their promises in the previous conferences, developed countries that promised to transfer funds to vulnerable states are delayed in fulfilling this commitment.
The stumbling block in addressing climate change is the geopolitics that powerful nations play. Saudi Arabia is on a defensive stance saying “the world hoped to crucify us” as top liquids exporters. The country is proud of producing the lowest methane emissions. On the other hand, Germany lamented that China should be included in the list of countries that pay towards helping poorer countries cope with climate change to reflect its economic growth. In 1992, China was listed as a developing country – a classification that does not reflect the current realities.
Climate change is a shared responsibility, and it is everyone’s business. But countries that contributed more to the emission of greenhouse gasses must bear proportionately the burden of mitigating, if not eliminating, its impact, especially in poor countries.