The UN COP27 in Egypt did not make the necessary progress as last year’s COP26 agreement pact to work towards a 1.5C rise in global temperature appears to be failing.
“Last year’s COP26 agreement pact to work towards a 1.5C rise in global temperature appears to be failing, as governments struggle to cope with more immediate concerns, despite Wednesday’s G20 pledge. The trouble is that governments tend to think in four- or five-year increments, rather than the longer term,” Robert Pritchard, Senior Analyst at GlobalData, said.
“The fact that we are able to use technology both to measure changes in climate and to lessen the impact of greenhouse gases is encouraging, and most enlightened corporations are actively pursuing such solutions. However, political leadership is lacking.”
Despite the disappointing lack of progress at this year’s get-together, there remains encouraging signs that enterprises and consumers broadly recognize the climate challenge, and the majority are willing to change their behaviour where they can (and can afford to) to address sustainability challenges.
Nonetheless, any ambitions to address long-term climate change will always be subject to short-term political imperatives, despite the broad consensus on securing the future of the planet being the most important issue facing us.
The progress made during COP27 is being further slowed by the alarming increase and spread of climate disinformation, worsened by Musk’s Twitter takeover. This is diluting the messaging around climate action while undermining any promises made at COP27, making people continue to lose faith.
Firstly, there were more fossil fuel delegates at COP27 than delegation from Africa. Not only is the messaging being lost through climate disinformation, but the debate may be shaped by fossil fuel companies.
“COP27 should be an arena to lobby governments on climate action but it also provides a platform to highlight the impact of climate disinformation, and lobby governments to regulate Big Tech on their role. There is no easy way to curb our addiction to fossil fuel but letting fossil fuel companies shape the debate, whilst riding the wave of climate disinformation, seems incredibly counterintuitive,” Rachel Jones, Thematic Analyst at GlobalData, said.