Article by Ayushi Juggoo

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash  

Earth temperatures have been rising since the Industrial Revolution. Evidence indicates that human activities are mostly responsible for making our planet warmer. According to NASA, the global temperature has increased by at least 1.1° since 1880. Much of the warming has occurred since 1975. Scientists have announced that the temperatures in 2023 reached 1.48^o C above the preindustrial average and the 1.5^o C threshold taking the earth in an unsafe zone is likely to be breached shortly.

These levels of temperature rise have had catastrophic impacts on the lives of people throughout the world. Last week the extreme rainfall in Spain has sadly led to more than 217 deaths. Such events have been occurring practically every day at global level. But more worrying is the steady rise in the severity of impacts of these events. According to the Global Risk Report 2024, more than two thirds of the major risks facing the world are categorized under environmental, societal and economic risks. This nexus of risks is a direct threat to achieving the various SDGs for the benefit of humanity.

But this begs a fundamental question: Whose making is this?

There has been and there is still a pervasive blame game of who is responsible for all. The developed nations claim that countries like China, India, Brazil are among the biggest polluters in their quest for economic growth while these developing countries are blaming the developed nations to now play the green development game when they have previously plundered the resources of the earth over the centuries. Meanwhile, the greenhouse gas emission levels are steadily increasing with the consequential unsustainable temperature rise.

Accordingly, the damages are exacerbating at all levels despite the relentless efforts through the multitude of the annual COP Meetings. There have been 28 COP meetings since 1995 (Berlin) and the next one (COP29) will be held shortly in Azerbaijan mainly aiming at increasing global climate finance and raising collective ambitions to climate actions. These initiatives are laudable to struggle for a greener future.

However, looking at the previous COP meetings, it can generally be inferred that, for some concrete actions to be possible, binding commitments by participating countries should be agreed upon. The difficulty in reaching meaningful agreements had already been apparent right at the COP 1 meeting when the 3 words (Reductions, Targets and Timetables) also known as the ‘R’ and ‘T’ words- the Berlin Jargon- took one week to be agreed and included in the final text.

By the time we reached the COP 28 (Dubai 2023), through the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Agreement (2015), the main criticisms were that the agreement did not address the root causes of climate change and for allowing loopholes for nations to avoid meeting their targets. These criticisms were still linked to the 3 words raised at COP1 meeting. Questions emerged on the level of CO₂ emissions by the thousands of delegates travelling to the meetings. Rather than focusing for a change in lifestyles to save the planet by addressing the climate change issues, it has come out to be a ‘buzz-meeting’.

Indeed, the problem of addressing climate change issues goes beyond the framework of the natural science. It has also a direct relationship with the world socio-economic systems. As stated by Urry, the said systems follow the capitalist strategy for promoting economic growth through clearly unsustainable production and consumption patterns respectively by corporations aiming at profit maximization and the population at large. Excess capitalism with growing population leads to rising carbon emissions and a radical rise in temperatures with cascading impacts of climate change on society. Therefore, the criticism levelled against the COPs for a failure to reach concrete agreements and meet targets, are closely linked to the inability of States to dissociate with the excess capitalism and the lobby of corporations to decrease production or genuinely resort to sustainable methods of production. Also, there is the complete demotivation and inaction by civil society to adopt a more sustainable mode of consumption at individual and grass-root level. The famous statement that “I cannot change the world on my own” is often flagged as an excuse towards the rejection of a sustainable living style.

Thus, on such a trend, the world will have to enhance its adaptive capacity to limit the impacts of climate change. The efforts should first and foremost start at individual level and then collectively to adopt a sustainable living pathway.

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