Some 70,000 world leaders are now in Baku, Azerbaijan participating in the year’s most important meeting — the state of global climate, which may be stretched to mean the survival of mankind itself.
The 29th Conference of Parties (COP) in Azerbaijan from November 11 to 22 is being held in compliance with the international treaty called the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which was ratified in Brazil in 1992. This treaty enjoins all signatories, which include the 193 United Nations member states (the Philippines is one of them), to meet every year at a COP to discuss what they are doing to combat and adapt to climate change.
It is worthwhile to review what the community of nations has achieved toward realizing the objectives of the UNFCCC since the inaugural COP in 1995. Scientific papers, formal discussions and resolutions were presented through the years and crucial climate commitments have been agreed on at these summits.
‘Still and all, COP29 organizers are unfazed, and should continue their work for the sake of humanity.’
One of the most notable is the landmark Paris Agreement forged at the COP21 in 2015, the international treaty that sets out to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels. This accord has the force of law in nations that signed it.
The COP29 in Azerbaijan takes on a greater relevance because of the catastrophic floods, storms, hurricanes and typhoons that visited countries in all the continents, both the disaster-prone ones and the relatively disaster-resilient.
Just as we push back in our recent collective memories the devastation and hundreds of lives lost to hurricane “Dorian” in the Bahamas in 2019, or typhoon “Haiyan” (Yolanda) in the Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China, Palau, etc. in 2013, killing more than 6,000, we are now witness to the rampaging waters that leveled Valencia, Spain last Oct. 29, killing over 200 people. In the Philippines, we are still recovering from the onslaught of extreme tropical storms “Kristine,” “Leon,” “Marce” and “Nika” that caused millions of pesos worth of damage to agriculture, infrastructure and trade.
At the opening of COP29, United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell touted the importance of the meeting, saying “this UNFCCC process is the only place we have to address the rampant climate crisis, and to credibly hold each other to account to act on it.” Without this process, humanity would be headed towards five degrees of global warming, he warned.
Stiell urged all nations to agree on a new global climate finance goal, since fighting climate change on a global scale involves a big amount of money — funds that only the big and developed economies have.
It is sad that the heads of state of the two most powerful and wealthy nations, the United States and China, are absent in the discussions. Even President Bongbong Marcos, who has made public his desire to attend both the COP28 in Dubai and COP29 in Baku, was absent, even after pushing for the Philippines’ hosting of the headquarters of the Loss and Damage Fund which will compensate poor nations for climate change losses.
US President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the last election was also a problem, as Trump has been critical of the work of the UNFCCC, and vowed to adopt a policy of “drill, drill, drill” in the Arctic to look for fossil fuel.
Still and all, COP29 organizers are unfazed, and should continue their work for the sake of humanity.
