COP17 + 10 years = what has changed (and not)?

In an earlier blog on COP17 in Durban 10 years ago, it highlighted geopolitics as a longstanding issue in climate change agreement efforts. Still, this geopolitical divide stands – but more so now between the developed and developing countries. .

At that time, COP17 was getting consensus amongst the developed countries to commit to GHG emissions target. The solution raised in recent years is sustainability – a new term coined to achieve economic growth and yet meeting emissions reduction targets. That has only come about with greater climate awareness in the media and private sector involvement. The figure shows the number of firms mentioned in the press on environmental efforts increasing more than 10x since the 2000s in the USA. Thanks to the earlier activism efforts by Al Gore and Greta Thunberg.

During the last 10 years, extreme weather conditions have become ‘common place’ for example, the hottest summer in 2022 in Europe on record and an IPCC study by the UN in Feb 2022 documented ‘widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damage, beyond natural climate variability‘.

Source: Refinitiv MarketPsych

All these have generated increased private sector involvement – something that did not happen during COP17 on a large scale. Money is the greatest wield. Carbon emissions cost €70-80 per ton today while it costed €6 10 years ago.

But increased investment is needed more so in the developing countries as this article in FT writes. For climate mitigation efforts to work, global multi-lateral efforts are needed. This geopolitical divide between the developed and developing countries is even greater today. It is the developing countries that bear the brunt of the climate change as this Bloomberg article rightly pointed out. The developed west can build dams and dykes, but the floods in South Asia incur billions in damages and sea level changes swamp the Pacific islands. Hopefully, the COP27 can resolve this.