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'We Need to Get Off the Current Road to Hell,' Say Former UN Climate Leaders
Global ambition to avert climate catastrophe "must shift quickly to another scale, beyond recognition."
Dec 10, 2020
A group of four former United Nations climate chiefs say it's "unthinkable" for the world to continue its business-as-usual approach to climate action, warning that without ramped-up ambition, humanity is headed down a "road to hell."
The assessment is laid out in an article published on Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Policy.
"We cannot continue kicking the can down the road to climate safety."
--Michael Zammit Cutajar, former UNFCCC Executive Secretary"Drawing on hardening IPCC science and building on the foundations of the 1992 Convention, the last 30 years of international cooperation have established a clear understanding of the need to prevent dangerous climate change and an opportunity to do so," Michael Zammit Cutajar, founding Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, a role he served from 1991-2002, said in a statement.
"But," Zammit Cutajar added, "the ambition and effectiveness of governmental and corporate action to this end must shift quickly to another scale, beyond recognition, if we are to achieve global net zero emissions over the next 30 years."
"We cannot continue kicking the can down the road to climate safety," he said.
Zammit Cutajar, along with lead co-author Richard Kinley, Yvo de Boer, and Christiana Figueres--all of whom helped lead the UNFCCC over the last several decades--evaluated the past 30 years in terms of international climate negotiations, noting that the talks have unleashed "tensions exacerbated by strong economic interests in preserving the fossil-fuel-based economy."
Those efforts continue, they wrote, as meaningful action to address the global crisis "challenges complacent democracies to look beyond their electoral noses towards long-term planetary security."
While heaping praise on the multilateralism that brought about three global treaties--the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and the Paris Agreement in 2015--the quartet lamented the "failure by governments to fully implement treaty obligations, exacerbated by the still inadequate response of the business community."
"At the national level," the authors wrote, "the Kyoto Protocol established legally-binding targets for developed countries while the Paris Agreement formalized the pledging of NDCs [nationally determined contributions] by all countries." Yet those NDCs "have been inconsistent with the action needed to meet the convention's objective and the Paris Agreement's mitigation goals."
Worthy of praise, they added, is the "changing [of] the narrative on climate change away from burden sharing to one of 'opportunity' and 'possibility'" in the years since the Paris deal was signed.
"The understanding has also taken root that a low-carbon, climate resilient economy is the only safe way to meet development imperatives, buttressed by the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in the same year as the Paris Agreement," the former climate officials wrote.
The international negotiations' impact on raising climate ambition is clear, they wrote, but there remains "a very dark cloud hanging over the UNFCCC process... namely global CO2 emissions are more than 65% higher now than they were in 1990."
According to the authors, "the heart of the problem is the failure by states to implement their commitments, all too often paying only lip-service to what needs to be done, as well as the hesitation of too many in the business community to act on the policy signals being sent."
Laying out a set of recommendations, the authors said "it is unthinkable to continue at the pace of the last 30 years."
They called for action:
- by governments to raise significantly the ambition of their NDCs and to act domestically with all means at their disposal to ensure full implementation, with the largest emitters and wealthiest countries bearing the most responsibility;
- by developed countries and multilateral financial institutions to support developing countries and ensure a just response to the climate challenge that secures sustainable energy access for all, supports adaptation and advances sustainable development; and
- by business, the finance sector and major economic actors to change the trajectory of development in the direction of what is now nearly universally accepted as a sustainable path, accelerating technological trends already underway while ensuring a just transition for workers.
The article further issued a 2030 target, "in order to have a good chance of not exceeding the 1.5degC temperature increase threshold, [for] a halving of net CO2 emissions" and suggested "2050 as the target year for achieving global net zero emissions."
Channeling the phrase used in 1954 by then-UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, the former climate chiefs said that "before we can seriously contemplate climate change 'heaven,' we need to get off the current road to 'hell,' even if it is paved with good intentions."
The set of recommendations were released just two days before the five-year anniversary of the Paris climate agreement, and as leaders gather at the Pacific Islands Forum to issue fresh demands for decision climate action.
Speaking at the virtual summit, Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimaram said Friday, "We Pacific nations owe it to our people, and to humanity as a whole, to raise our voices more to demand that major emitters step up their climate actions and commitments."
"Without this, we will lose our homes, our way of life our wellbeing and livelihoods--it's past time to get serious," Bainimaram added. "We all signed the Paris agreement; now let's insist we put it to work."
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Leaving Paris for All The Wrong Reasons
Jun 16, 2017
The announcement by Donald Trump that that United States intends to ignore the non-binding Paris Climate Agreement, with the intention to renegotiate it to foist his America First policy on the rest of the world, should come as no surprise to anyone. What is surprising is who opposed the US withdrawal: Big business - including fossil fuel transnationals Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and BP, industrial agribusiness and agrochemical giants Monsanto, DuPont, and General Mills, and more, as well as the current Secretary of State (and former Exxon exec). If nothing else, this assortment of big-business boosters of the Paris Agreement tells us just how weak the agreement truly is at addressing the root causes of climate change.
Since Kyoto, the US has diluted every global climate proposal to the point of ineffectiveness, including the Copenhagen Accord in 2009 and the Paris Agreement itself. It was the US that insisted on making the deal based on non-binding pledges for voluntary emissions cuts (which collectively would still lead to a global temperature increase between 3-4degC above pre-industrial levels), on preventing the operating text of the agreement from including recognition of human rights and the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and on promoting many false solutions that will end up doing a great deal of harm (including so-called "carbon neutrality," which allows polluters to keep polluting by purchasing offsets).
These realities, combined with Trump's claims that the Paris Agreement would somehow be an unfair burden on the US, are particularly disturbing, embarrassing, and even enraging, given the responsibility that the US has as being the most historically responsible for the causes of climate change, and our continued role as one of the most significant contributors of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
"By abandoning the Paris Agreement, this administration will further perpetuate environmental racism and climate injustice against Indigenous Peoples experiencing the worst effects of climate change across the globe...Backing out of this agreement continues a long history of broken promises and threatens the vital and sacred life cycles of Mother Earth." - Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network
It is clear that major transnational corporations played a large role in influencing the US's role in negotiating the Paris agreement. Indeed, Bloomberg news reports that Exxon and Conoco-Phillips supported the Paris agreement based on the argument that "The U.S. is better off with a seat at the table so it can influence global efforts to curb emissions that are largely produced by the fossil fuels they profit from."
At Grassroots International, we are reflecting on four key lessons and priorities for climate justice work going forward:
- Contrary to Trump's "America First" philosophy, isolating the US from the rest of the world only hurts us more. We are not separate from each other or from the rest of the world - rather our lives and our future are in a precarious balance that is linked to one another. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words are more true today than ever: "In a real sense all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
- We must continue to push and hold our government accountable for the US' role in causing climate disruption. In a recent Grassroots Global Justice Alliance statement about Trump's withdrawal of the US from the Paris Climate Agreement, Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, shared this perspective: "By abandoning the Paris Agreement, this administration will further perpetuate environmental racism and climate injustice against Indigenous Peoples experiencing the worst effects of climate change across the globe...Backing out of this agreement continues a long history of broken promises and threatens the vital and sacred life cycles of Mother Earth."
- Perhaps more than ever, a translocal strategy is one of our best opportunities to combat climate change. Recently, mayors across the country made a pledge to uphold the Paris agreement at the local level. While this pledge is not enough, it is an important signal to the world that the majority of the country does not agree with Trump's climate denial approach. Furthermore, it is a sign that it is possible to win more government action for climate justice at the local level, with cities, towns, states, and Tribal governments.
- As always, it is clear that what is most needed is leadership and solutions coming from those most impacted by climate disruption, including grassroots communities and social movements of small-scale farmers, Indigenous Peoples, Black and Afro-descendant communities, migrant communities, women, and young people in the US and around the world - particularly in the Global South. These are the communities on the frontlines of climate impacts, and at the forefront of struggle. These are the communities putting their bodies and lives on the line to stop fossil fuel extraction, to regulate refineries and shut down power plants, to stop the corporate takeover of agriculture, land, water, and seeds. These are the communities pushing to address the legacies of environmental injustice. These are the communities standing up against megadams, forest offsets, agro-fuels, and other false solutions to climate change. And these are the communities creating the solutions that we will need for a healthy future, based on the concept of buen vivir - living well, in harmony with one another and with Mother Earth.
In the US, communities organized through the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ), Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and others are taking leadership to articulate Just Transition agendas at the local level, and they are winning! These agendas include pushing for an end to the extractive economy, and transitioning to regenerative, local, living, loving, linked economies. These economies include community land trusts, agroecology, local seed libraries, and other strategies to achieve food sovereignty They include expansion of public transit and community controlled renewable energy, along with protection of rivers and ecosystems.
These are the struggles that have won and will continue to win real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, while building community resilience to the impacts of climate change. In fact, the same day that Trump announced pulling the US from the Paris Agreement, Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) announced an amazing victory in Richmond, California - a historic cap on pollution from oil refineries, which will prevent Bay Area refineries from bringing Tar Sands or other extreme and heavy crudes to be processed.
It is clear that we are in a unique and critical moment in the history of the planet. Through our Climate Justice Initiative and beyond, Grassroots International is committed to continuing to prioritize our work to support and accompany climate justice struggles in the US, with GGJ, CJA, and others, and with our partners leading climate justice movements in the Global South.
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The Climate Deal That Failed Us
"History will be the judge of what has happened in Cancun." These are the last lines of the Bolivian Government's press release yesterday about the outcome of the climate negotiations here in Cancun. The talks ended here today after two weeks of negotiations by a 192 governments. It is a deal that will be remembered by our future generations as one that killed the climate treaty, unless we radically change course.
Dec 11, 2010
"History will be the judge of what has happened in Cancun." These are the last lines of the Bolivian Government's press release yesterday about the outcome of the climate negotiations here in Cancun. The talks ended here today after two weeks of negotiations by a 192 governments. It is a deal that will be remembered by our future generations as one that killed the climate treaty, unless we radically change course.
Witnessing standing ovations and applause in the closing hours over negotiating texts that basically kill the Kyoto Protocol and make emissions reductions voluntary for all governments fills me with a profound sense of disillusionment (you can view the final plenaries here). Disillusionment at the utter lack of leadership exhibited by virtually every government except Bolivia and disillusionment at the role that many environmental and development groups played in legitimizing these governments' actions.
The compromise arrived at Cancun was a coup for the United States. The U.S. came in with nothing to offer in terms of binding commitments to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and yet managed to effectively push for voluntary targets. The source of these targets is the "Copenhagen Accord" that President Obama negotiated by cornering a few key countries in a back room in the last hours of the climate negotiations a year ago.
"There is only one way to measure the success of a climate agreement, and that is based on whether or not it will effectively reduce emissions to prevent runaway climate change. This text clearly fails, as it could allow global temperatures to increase by more than 4 degrees, a level disastrous for humanity," says Bolivia.
Sadly, Bolivia was set up as the scapegoat at the meeting--portrayed as the only country standing in the way of multilateralism and progress on a climate deal. "The perfect is the enemy of the good," they said.
Manufacturing Consensus
This scapegoating is nothing new. I have witnessed it in the WTO where governments, under great pressure by powerful countries like the United States and the EU, are too afraid to speak out or too keen to be seen as constructive actors on the geopolitical theater. And theater it was last night--as country after country--applauded the President of the COP, for her "open and transparent" process and a successful outcome. Yet in reality, we all knew that the deal had been negotiated behind closed doors by a handful of countries. At times, there were 50 countries in a room somewhere in the conference complex.
But we did not know where and we did not know what they were negotiating. Civil society, unlike other UN negotiations, was not allowed in any of the drafting groups. And what governments drafted did not even seem to appear in the texts crafted by the Chairs of the two negotiating tracks of the climate talks.
In the closing hours of the COP, Bolivia made strong statements that it did not agree to the outcome and that there was no consensus. In the UN, all countries must agree and have "consensus" before a treaty or a deal is adopted. In Cancun, the deal was ceremoniously gaveled as agreed.
For civil society organizations, Cancun must be a wake up call for serious reflection. How have we been complicit in an outcome that has ultimately not respected the science of global warming? Worse still, some have applauded an outcome that lets industrialized countries off the hook from legally binding and mandatory targets to reduce GHGs--something they agreed to when they signed the Kyoto Protocol.
The 20th anniversary of the birth of the Climate Treaty is 2012 and the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Let's ensure that by the time we get there, we have managed to shift the fundamental elements of what was agreed here in Cancun towards a much more accountable framework to address climate change.
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