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As Spain reels from catastrophic flooding, it’s clear that the climate crisis has become clearer and more urgent than ever. Collective action is the only way to turn things around.
Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai demand an end to Fossil Fuels. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki/ Trócaire, 2023
It all began in Rio in 1992. At the Global Earth Summit, three landmark treaties emerged: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Since then, the global Summits on these issues have been termed ‘Conferences of the Parties’, or COP.
This year, a trio of COPs will take place: on Biodiversity, Climate and Land, taking place in quick succession between October and December in Colombia, Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia, respectively. The most well-known of these is the Climate COP.
Members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and signatories of the landmark Paris Climate Change Agreement have all committed to prevent “dangerous” human interference with the climate system and the COP is where those commitments are tested. It is the central point for collaboration on the world’s greatest collective challenge- climate change.
Every UN member state, as well as the State of Palestine, the Holy See, Niue, the Cook Islands, and the European Union, will be present at this year’s conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, along with indigenous leaders, climate scientists, NGOs, activists, journalists and other diplomats. There will also be a large number of lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry, as there have been at previous COPs
The Conference provides the space to take stock, and to set collective targets and commitments for climate action. There are two fundamental aims: mitigation and adaptation. The first is about taking urgent action to reduce pollution that causes global warming and finding ways to clean up the air; the second is about making changes to better cope with the effects of climate change.
No, they are all a bit different, but momentum has picked up since 2015. The Paris Climate Change Agreement was a huge milestone. Negotiators managed to get 195 countries and the EU to sign up to a key goal: halt the global average temperature rise to well below 2°C by 2100 and pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This opened the door for citizens around the world to hold governments accountable for climate action.
Since then, every COP has framed a different pivot point for planning and action. The 2022 COP in Egypt was about the shift to implementation, with the major achievement of the conference being the establishment of a Fund for Loss & Damage. Loss and Damage refers to the harmful effects of climate change that cannot be avoided, cannot be mitigated or adapted to, even after trying to reduce emissions or prepare for the impacts. It’s about the type of disasters and extreme weather events that we are already seeing.
Last year at Dubai, the centrepiece of COP was the ‘Global Stocktake’, an assessment of global progress towards climate goals as per the Paris Agreement: though watered down, it was the first COP text that openly called on countries to progressively halt the processing and use of fossil fuels. In fact, in 30 years of negotiations, it was the first mention of fossil fuels in a formal agreement!
Last year’s COP delivered mixed results. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki/ Trócaire, 2023
With the centrepiece of the negotiations focussed on adopting a new Climate Finance target, COP 29 has been dubbed the ‘Finance COP’. The top negotiating priority for COP 29 is the forging of agreement on a new climate finance goal which enables collective action on a scale consistent with keeping 1.5 degrees within reach.
Climate finance, broadly speaking, refers to international funding to support mitigation and adaptation actions that will address climate change. The Paris Climate Change agreement states that this funding should come from high-income countries which are historically most responsible for carbon emissions. This comes from an acknowledgement of the impact higher income countries have had in creating this climate crisis and our responsibility to pay for it.
Although estimates of the exact figure required to deliver adequate climate finance vary, most agree that lower income countries will need at least an additional 1 trillion dollars in climate finance per year from higher income countries in order to facilitate a just transition. The Climate Action Network, of which Trócaire is a member, is calling for a minimum allocation of 1 trillion dollars per year on a grant equivalent basis. That is ten times the current commitment of 100 billion dollars per year.
Unfortunately not. We need to restrict the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels and we are not on course for that. In fact, we are very close to breaking that limit already.
Before Paris, the world was on course for an apocalyptic 4 degrees of warming. The Paris Agreement targets brought that down, but the latest UN Emissions Gap report shows that the world is still on track to warm 2.6-3.1°C over the course of this century- we are on course for a catastrophic climate breakdown.
Crops have failed due to drought in Zimbabwe, Photo: Patricia Chikumura / Trócaire
To get on a genuine pathway for only 1.5°C warming, emissions must fall 42 per cent by
2030, compared to 2019 levels. This means that, globally, 7.5 per cent must be shaved off emissions every year until 2035 for us to stay within 1.5°C of warming.
Although many states, including the hosts of COP 29 and COP 28, have argued that continued use fossil fuels is compatible with the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has contradicted this.
CO2 produced by human activities is the largest contributor to global warming. Burning coal, oil and gas, produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide and these are the gasses that produce the ‘greenhouse effect’ of warming. By 2020, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere had risen to 48% above its pre-industrial level (before 1750).
In contrast, natural causes, such as changes in solar radiation or volcanic activity are estimated to have contributed less than 0.1°C to total warming between 1890 and 2010. There is simply no way to slow climate breakdown without an immediate, accelerated and complete transition away from fossil fuels.
Lower income countries, or what has been known as the ‘Global South’, are responsible for only 8% of excess global carbon dioxide emissions. In historic terms, rich countries like Ireland, the US, UK and the EU, have contributed over 90% of human-induced CO2 emissions and are responsible for 37% of current emissions, although they are home to only 15% of the world’s population. However, privileged economies and major corporations have failed to take responsibility for drastically reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
The deep injustice of this is that those who have done least to cause the climate crisis, and who have the least capacity to adapt, are suffering most severely from its impacts. These are the most marginalised, those living in poverty and those with no safety net.
They are living through worsening droughts, storms and disasters. Trócaire helps these communities when disaster strikes, but we also campaign for deeper change to stop climate injustice.
Trócaire has been working for climate justice since 2008, because we know that the communities we work alongside need nothing short of a climate revolution.
Two women meet on small sand dunes, roaring winds battering them with sand. Yet the sand should not be here. Desertification is consuming parts of Southern Ethiopia. Photo: Barnaby Jaco Skinner/ Trócaire
Ireland may be small relative to many larger states and polluters but the harsh truth is that our carbon footprint has been disproportionately high for many years, even among other higher income nations. From 1990 to 2005, Ireland’s emissions grew by 25% while other EU countries mostly saw a decline.
The good news is that Ireland greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland are at their lowest level in 30 years, according to the latest figures from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Ireland’s reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in recent years is heartening: it’s evidence that climate action can produce real results, and quite fast, but not fast enough. Ireland must sign the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty and commit to a rapid phase out of fossil fuel use.
We must also support the agreement of an ambitious, fair, and needs-based new climate finance goal, referred to in the negotiations as a ‘New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG).
Research from Trócaire and Christian Aid Ireland found that Ireland’s fair share of Loss and Damage climate finance is estimated to be at least €1.5 billion per year by 2030, yet Ireland has pledged just €12.5 million euro for both 2024 and 2025 at COP28, which would represent less than 1% of its fair share. This is essential to gain the momentum necessary to limit emissions.
Ineza Umuhoza Grace, founder and CEO of Trócaire partner ‘The Green Protector’ in Rwanda is driven by her own experience of her home being flooded when she was a child. Ineza now dedicates her life to advocating strongly for climate justice and for the countries on the frontlines to be listened to more in global climate negotiations. Photo: Muiru Mbuthia
When it comes to climate change- no one bears more responsibility for the earth’s ecological breakdown and related humanitarian crises than the fossil fuel industry.
The lasting power and influence of the fossil fuel industry should not be underestimated. A startling analysis earlier this year revealed that a mere 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world’s global fossil CO2 emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement.
Research indicates that oil and gas companies have taken an average of $2.8 billion per day in profits since 1970. This wealth equates with significant power and influence over global climate action, enabling a relentless campaign against regulation.
It is not only fossil fuel companies that obstruct effective climate action. Fossil fuel extraction is also highly profitable for investors, including banks, private equity funds and pension funds. This helps explain why global banks have funnelled a staggering $6.9 trillion to fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement.
Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has said the next two years are “essential in saving our planet”. As floods rage through Spain, drought lingers over Southern Africa, Antarctica continues to record high temperatures, and the Amazon rainforest edges towards a catastrophic
tipping point, the scale of our challenge could not be clearer.
All states and actors must put their shoulder to the wheel at this COP and give us the best chance at averting complete climate breakdown. It’s time to break up with fossil fuels.
