UN Climate Summit spews hot air… and hope
They’ve got four minutes each. One after another, over 100 heads of state stand beneath a UN banner in New York City and tell the world, via livestream, it’s time for decisive action on climate change. Many are pleading, plenty are posturing, but nearly all of them end up testifying on how the ravages of global warming are already ripping through their nations. It feels an awful lot like a doomsday roll call. Record floods? Here. Record drought? Here. Record heat? Here, here, here.
So what do world leaders plan to do about it? Last week’s UN Climate Summit wasn’t officially supposed to firm up a new global agreement. (That happens, fingers crossed, next year in Paris.) But UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon was clearly hoping early-bird commitments would pump up political momentum.
In poured pledges from countries big and small to go 100 per cent renewable by 2016 (go, Costa Rica!), have a fossil fuel-free economy (god speed, Iceland!) and cut emissions by 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030 (thanks for sticking to Kyoto targets, Europe).
Of course, every good climate deed trumpeted in this room full of politicians needs a good fact checker. Canadian Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq takes the stage to insist her government is taking “decisive action to ensure Canada remains a leader” on climate change. Sure.
France’s pledge to donate $1 billion toward the UN’s Green Climate Fund to help poorer nations combat climate change may be big news. But the $2.3 billion committed to the Fund thus far still falls well below the $100 billion a year promised since Copenhagen to developing countries dealing with the brunt of climate change.
One of the most rousing speeches comes from the leader of a country that, on paper, has committed to the least at the summit but is promising big things for the year ahead.
Says U.S. President Barack Obama says in his address: “The alarm bells keep ringing, our citizens keep marching. We cannot pretend we do not hear them. We have to answer the call.”
Despite all the hot air in the room, you can’t help but feel hopeful. The summit did succeed in galvanizing climate action from civil society and big business (see roundup below).
Will it help catalyse the legally binding global climate pact the planet needs? Only if we keep the pressure on.
Roundup: Climate summit side deals
Last week’s climate summit gathered not just heads of state but ceos and ngos to jam on greenhouse gas reductions. Dozens of deals were announced. Some highlights:
- Global Energy Efficiency Accelerator Platform 40 countries, 30 cities and dozens of corporations signed on to double the rate of global energy efficiency by 2030 for cars, buildings, lighting, appliances and district energy.
- New York Declaration On Forests 28 governments and 35 companies joined with indigenous groups and NGOs in vowing to halve deforestation by 2020 and “strive to end it” by 2030. Notably, the second-most forested nation on earth, Brazil, didn’t sign on. But 24 of the world’s biggest palm oil producers and traders committed to work toward a zero-net deforestation goal by 2020.
- Global Mayors Compact 2,000 cities link arms to beef up climate action.
- Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition A group of institutional investors has teamed up with the UN to decarbonize $100 billion in investments by December 2015.
- Global Divest-Invest Coalition Rockefeller Brothers Fund announced the day before the summit that it was joining a coalition of 650 philanthropists and 180 investors in pulling $50 billion from fossil fuel investments.
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