Pyrrhic Victory at COP27?

With the countdown to 1.5° less than seven years away and many scientists saying that peak emissions must come by 2025, it has become apparent that it is no longer viable to reach that target. For peak emissions to be reached by that date, there would have to be action similar in scale to the preparation for WWII by Western and Eastern powers. It is therefore blatantly obvious that this COP did nothing to put a dent towards that goal.

What it did do was establish a "Loss and Damage" fund. It is of considerable note that no solid numbers for that fund have been set; what is clear is that the lion's share of that fund will come from historic contributors to the carbon crises. i.e. the Global North. Researchers have suggested that the total yearly cost of climate change to the globe could reach $580bn by 2030. I find the fund hardly worth considering; as I find it hard to believe that it will reach a quarter of that figure. Considering how long it took for the pledge of $100bn dollars in 2012 from richer countries to reach even 80% of what was promised – which was over half a decade. It is hard to imagine how quickly such a fund will be gathered, or just how much will be committed towards it.

What is to note however, is the lack of any commitment to the reduction of fossil fuel use. I personally don't believe that the 25% increase in fossil fuel representatives at COP had anything to do with that outcome, just like how Big Tobacco had nothing to do with the delay in the reduction of smoking amongst the population or Dupont had any vested interest in seeing tetraethyl lead gasoline being used decades after the toxic effect on humans was known.

Having oil and gas representatives feature so prominently at COP is like having a dog making the decisions on the regulation of cats. What could possibly go wrong?

As we move forwards it is becoming increasingly hard to imagine a world where the quality of life we have today will be made available to those born after 2050. It is one of the reasons why the Cyberpunk genre is so chillingly easy to imagine. It is just a thought on how things can be in the popular zeitgeist, but there are more hopeful futures to cling on to, to emulate, to propagate and realise. One of the most talked about today is Solarpunk.

SOLARPUNK

Solarpunk began as most genres do, as an aesthetic. But as it developed, a philosophy began to build around its aesthetic. Living within the bounds of nature, whilst enjoying the wonders of "modern" technology. The key to it is the use of existing technologies to achieve a world built on the pillars of sustainability: human, social, economic and environmental sustainability. These are what a world that lives in harmony with the earth would be based on.

Let's break that down

1. Human

The core of human sustainability is the continual growth of the human mind, its skills and its treatment of the self. It embodies the principle that education is something that every person on this planet requires in order to maintain and build a brighter future. The better educated a person is, the better they can make the choices that collectively benefit all of us. Ignorance is a powerful cause of destructive action, be that throwing refuse in a river, or giving into the selfish desire to exploit a dwindling important resource. Health is another aspect of this pillar, the access to health resources is key to the creation of a long and prosperous life. Unhealthy people do not make for focused productive contributors to society and lead to much of the damage to the Earth through the associated poverty that can occur with having chronic health conditions. Sickness through dirty water leads to lost economic activity and lost economic activity means less ability to better one's situation. If you can't afford to properly dispose of your refuse, it is likely to end up in damaging places to the environment.

2. Social

Social sustainability as simple as can be is that the institutions we build today must have the strength to persist for the generations to come. This encompasses the relationships between people and nations and the rights that individuals should and must have in order to achieve cohesion. Social unrest does not lead to a people able to make decisive action as a collective. Factionalism, as can be seen in most contemporary political systems, inevitably leads to deadlock and disinformation. The promotion of sustainable systemography is of upmost importance. Consistent legal, political, and institutional reform is necessary in most societies to create a more equitable society. It is not only important that such reform is implemented, but also necessary to preserve the quality-of-life improvements enjoyed for the last half century.

Note: Human and Social Sustainability are often merged, however, the importance of both can be watered down by doing so.

3. Economic

Economic sustainability is something few politicians are able to promote. This is because of the focus on metrics that fail to take into account the problems that the current economic systems cause. GDP is a number that most people are able to understand, Gross Domestic Product. It takes into account private consumption, gross private investment, government investment, government spending and trade balance. The problem with this figure is that it fails to account for the damage (and therefore cost) caused to the environment from these investments and spending. Along with the social and human costs. All that it boils down to is the money and wealth generated, it cares not for the source of this wealth. When the current economic system is going to lead to $590bn of damages a year in 2030, would it not make sense to account for that in the statistics we target? Better indicators to be nationally proud of would be things like HDI(Human Development index) or the GINI coefficient(A measure of wealth inequality). GDP obsession drives the linear economy, the idea that infinite growth can be generated from limited resources, the products of which end up in landfill, or polluting the air. A circular economy is the solution; remember the old adage, reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle? It is based upon the idea that as much as possible, end products of the economy should have a service lifetime as long as feasibly possible and when it finally reaches that end of life, the resources within that item should be fed back into the creation of new products. As it stands, there are megatonnes of useable metals in dumps around the globe and the environmental cost of mining fresh materials are simply unconscionable. Essentially, the financial cost of buying an item is not the only cost associated with it. One helium balloon today is an MRI a future human cannot have.

4. Environmental

All systems must function within the constraints of the environment in order to be sustainable. The environment provides us incalculable value through the services it provides, from the pollination of foodstuffs (a value calculated at between $230bn and $580bn a year globally), the provision of fresh clean water (a 1983 study suggested that the value of maintaining a swimming quality of freshwater in the USA alone to be $58bn), the ozone (An estimated 2 million people a year have been saved from skin cancer by the patching of the ozone hole, that is a lot of economic, social and human capital) and the list goes on. Planetary boundaries are a concept that developed in the 1970's. It has also been known as Gaia theory. It is the idea that the exploitation of one planetary boundary leads to the collapse of the capacity of others. It is of note that of the eight currently identified planetary boundaries four are stretched beyond their limits. We have been accommodating one or two at the expense of the rest for the last century, but we are quickly coming to understand that the breaking of one boundary can have catastrophic effects on others. The basis for this is systemic thinking, which is an analytical tool which focuses on the "bigger picture" of an issue, when thinking sustainably, thinking systemically is key as each action can have unforeseen consequences in other key areas. It is critical that we address the breaking of these boundaries and we know for a fact it can be done. The Ozone hole is healing not in spite of, but because of human cooperation and the signing of the Montreal protocol.

CONCLUSION

Drastic change of the very fundamental systems by which we operate as a global society are required to move the world in a path where those to come have the same quality of life as we have enjoyed. COP27 made an effort to address just one of these pillars. It is not a question of left or right, conservative or progressive. It is a question that is simple: do you want your kids to have a better life than you?

Edited by Larissa Duncan

Figures in USD

Do you love (Your) children enough to act?

• Yes
• No