Future UN climate summits should be held only in countries that can show clear support for climate action and have stricter rules on fossil fuel lobbying, according to a group of influential climate policy experts.
The group includes former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, the former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, the former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and the prominent climate scientist Johan Rockström.
They have written to the UN demanding the current complex process of annual “conferences of the parties” under the UN framework convention on climate change – the Paris agreement’s parent treaty – be streamlined, and meetings held more frequently, with more of a voice given to developing countries.
“It is now clear that the Cop is no longer fit for purpose. We need a shift from negotiation to implementation,” they wrote.
The thing is, negotiation is always easier than implementation, which is why it comes before.
It’s pretty clear at this point we’re going to stop climate change right around as fast as technology forces us to. I don’t see any other plausible path.
Huh? What does this even mean?
How can anyone be this optimistic about “fixing” climate change?
I’m talking about solar, EVs and so on. It’s straight-up cheaper to not use fossil fuels now, for most things, and the remaining ones seem like they’re inevitably coming.
Don’t worry, I’m still pretty doomer about it. The planet’s going to get a bit messed up in the meanwhile, and we’d have just kind of boiled ourselves like a frog, if we hadn’t gotten lucky with cheap renewables suddenly appearing.