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Are Climate Summits A Waste Of Time Global Issues

Leo Migdal
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are climate summits a waste of time global issues

Research fellow, The University of Melbourne Arthur Wyns has received funding from the University of Melbourne, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank. University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU. The United Nations’ global climate summit has finished for another year. Some progress was made in Brazil on climate finance and adaptation. But efforts to end reliance on fossil fuels were stymied by – you guessed it – fossil fuel powers.

It left many observers with a question: is this really the best we can do? Nearly every country (except the United States) joined the COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belém. The meeting showed the best and the worst of multilateralism – when countries try to address global problems beyond the capacity of an individual nation. NEW YORK, Oct 18 (IPS) - Next month, the latest annual United Nations climate extravaganza, COP27, will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Last year it was in Glasgow. Next year it will be held in (drum roll please) … Dubai!

These big climate events have been around a long time. Since 1995, there has been a climate COP (short for “Conference of the Parties”) every year except 2020, when it was postponed due to the Covid pandemic. Over the years, the COP roadshow has traveled far and wide. From Berlin to Buenos Aires, Kyoto to Cancun, and Bali to Marrakesh, the COPs have criss-crossed the globe with the aim of finessing new agreements to see off the specter of climate change. These annual summits generate a lot of interest. The most recent in Glasgow attracted tens of thousands of participants.

World leaders and celebrities often jet in and join the throng, while the global media reports every move in the corridors of power and concerned citizens protest outside. And yet the COPs are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to UN-sponsored climate meetings. If you add the several preparatory meetings in the lead-up to the COPs, plus a host of workshops and other events by various expert technical groups, you’re easily looking at several dozen gatherings every... Each event is supposed to help us move the needle on climate change, keeping our warming world within the 1.5o Celsius threshold beyond which we face potentially catastrophic consequences. But what, exactly, do all of these many meetings accomplish? Are they really worth all this time and effort?

COP30 President President André Corrêa do Lago at a critical moment in the final plenary session of talks In three decades of these meetings aimed at forging global consensus on how to prevent and deal with global warming, this will go down as among the most divisive. Many countries were livid when COP30 in Belém, Brazil ended on Saturday with no mention of the fossil fuels that have heated up the atmosphere. Other nations - particularly those with most to gain from their continued production - felt vindicated. The summit was a reality check on just how much global consensus has broken down over what to do about climate change. Here are five key takeaways from what some have called the "COP of truth".

In the past few months United Nations-sponsored negotiations to tackle climate change and environmental issues have either failed or come out with limited outcomes, leading to questions about the process. People arrive for the day at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 19, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel, File)

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, from front left, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Simon Stiell, United Nations climate chief, Antonio Guterres, United Nations secretary-general, Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan president, Turkey President Recep Tayyip and... Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) Activists participate in a demonstration for climate finance at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov.

21, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File) Ann Carlotta Oltmanns pretends to resuscitate the Earth during a demonstration at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 18, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

David Callaway and Douglas McIntyre, Editors-in-Chief at Climate Crisis 24/7, discussed the growing futility of annual global climate summits. They criticized how recent summits in Egypt and the UAE were undermined by oil interests, calling them the symbolic end of global cooperation efforts. Looking ahead to the next summit in Brazil, they warned of logistical chaos and political inaction, suggesting that without a major shift, climate diplomacy has lost its effectiveness. Even corporate sponsorships like Coca-Cola’s were mocked for their irony in the face of environmental degradation. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The COP30 summit in Brazil showcased both the promise and pitfalls of global climate negotiations.

While progress was made on finance, adaptation, and deforestation initiatives, consensus-based decision-making stalled action on fossil fuels. Experts argue reforms—such as majority voting, stronger implementation focus, and curbing vested interests—are essential to make these summits more effective. The United Nations’ global climate summit has finished for another year. Some progress was made in Brazil on climate finance and adaptation. But efforts to end reliance on fossil fuels were stymied by — you guessed it — fossil fuel powers. It left many observers with a question: is this really the best we can do?

Nearly every country (except the United States) joined the COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belém. The meeting showed the best and the worst of multilateralism — when countries try to address global problems beyond the capacity of an individual nation. World leaders stay away as spectre of Donald Trump haunts flagship UN climate summit Papua New Guinea is boycotting this week's Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in protest against the "empty promises and inaction" from richer countries. The Pacific island's foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko called the UN's flagship climate event a "total waste of time", and he joined a growing list of leaders who will not be attending. The outgoing US President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and China's President Xi Jinping are also among the absentees in Baku.

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