Next week’s UN meeting in Bonn, Germany, which will see the island nation of Fiji preside, will include work on the creation of a so-called rule book for the Paris Climate Accord.
In preface to that, Fiji’s chief negotiator, Luke Daunivalu, has been quoted by Reuters as saying that “the current commitments nationally are woefully inadequate.”
While that appraisal is itself not very good, it’s perhaps still an underestimate of the situation. The reality seems to be that nothing much is being done in any serious sense to limit the extent and intensity of anthropogenic climate change.
Reporting about the plans submitted by various countries to the UN in preface to the meeting, Reuters states: “China, for instance, said there are still ‘huge gaps’ in efforts to curb climate change and that rich nations are lagging in pledges to provide $100 billion a year to developing nations from 2020 to help them tackle warming.”
“Small island developing states, from the Pacific to the Caribbean, say they are suffering ever more from rising sea levels and storm surges whipped up by cyclones. They say there is too much hand-wringing and too little action…The rule book, formally the ‘implementation guidelines’ for a pact that has no sanctions for non-compliance, will define ways to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions, and how to review and step up national actions every 5 years.”
This rule book is expected to be finalized at a further meeting in December, but, as noted above, it will never be binding.
Summing up the situation, the environment minister for the Maldives, Thoriq Ibrahim, stated: “If we spent as much time working on this problem as we do congratulating ourselves for caring so deeply about it, we would be closer to an outcome worthy of a celebration.”
No kidding. There’s a deep chasm between actions that are truly effective (and likely to not be very palatable to most people) and those that are undertaken for PR purposes.
And, for that matter, between “beliefs” that are acted upon, and those that simply signify group/tribe association.
The UN meeting in question will run from April 30 through May 10 in Bonn, Germany.
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