Yahoo Finance Terence Corcoran: Get ready for the COP27 hurricane
I just spent a few hours reviewing news reports and commentaries on next Sunday’s assembly of global climate policymakers at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, described by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as a “green city,” where his country will host the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. According to the president, the world has come a long way in the fight against climate change over the past 30 years. “We are now able to better understand the science behind climate change, better assess its impacts, and better develop tools to address its causes and consequences.”
Optimism is an admiral quality, but El-Sisi may be reaching a little too deep into the wish bowl when he says he believes “COP27 is an opportunity to showcase unity against an existential threat that we can only overcome through concerted action and effective implementation.”
Where to start? We have teen green Greta Thunberg saying she will not be among the thousands of NGOs (including 165 from Canada) at the meeting because it is nothing but an opportunity for “people in power … to (use) greenwashing, lying and cheating.” King Charles won’t be there. U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had said he would not attend, but caved after former PM Boris Johnson accepted an invitation from the Egyptian president.
The general consensus is, as usual, that now is the time for all nations to come together to adopt a co-ordinated policy response to curb global carbon emissions to avoid what Canadian science activist Katharine Hayhoe — and thousands of other alarmists — describe as the greatest threat to the planet. “Unless every country participates … it won’t succeed,” wrote Hayhoe in Saving Us, her 2021 religious plea for global co-operation and unity.
It’s not going to happen. Russia is a lost cause. President Vladimir Putin in a speech last week said, “Climate change is no longer at the top of the agenda,” adding later in the same speech that “Western politicians are just talking their tongues in order to win voters over to their side. At first they scare ordinary citizens with possible climate change, then on the basis of this fear they begin to promise something that is impossible to fulfil, they get votes, they come to power, and then — ‘boom.’ ” He sounds like Greta.
In Europe and the U.K., an energy crisis looms over lack of supply of carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Jos Delbeke, climate chair of the European University Institute, told the Financial Times that Europe’s biggest challenge today is “energy poverty” and the risk of de-industrialization. “That is what Europe should focus on now, more than setting new climate targets.”
In Canada, talk of meeting hard net-zero carbon emissions targets is fast and easy, but stand-alone national policies will not go far in a world that Canadian leaders claim is already falling apart. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland outlined the new global divide between carbon-fighting liberal democracies and the giant carbon-expanding autocracies represented by Russia and China. Her plan is to form coalitions of democracies to engage in “friend-shoring” while fending off totalitarians in China. “We should design our government procurement and incentive programs with friend-shoring in mind.”
That does not sound like a foundation for dialogue with China, where carbon emissions are still growing. In his 25,000-word speech in Beijing last month, President Xi Jinping mentioned climate twice, the second reference being this: “We will get actively involved in global governance in response to climate change.”
As for China’s net-zero pathway, the International Energy Agency and the World Bank both report that China is far from being on the brink of meeting any targets. Coal production is exploding and carbon emissions are set to climb. As the graph shows, a decline in energy emissions is projected but only after peaking around 2035, well above current levels. Can liberal democracies trust the autocracies to fulfil any deal they might sign in Egypt over the next few weeks?
As I finish this column, the COP27 website says there are four days, eight hours and 27 minutes before the meetings begin. Not much time left to fix the next 80 years of carbon emissions.
• Email: tcorcoran@postmedia.com | Twitter: terencecorcoran
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