By Gary Cuneen, Seven Generations Ahead
November 16, 2024
Petro COPs
Last night at an off-site venue (Landmark Hotel) in Azerbaijan, The Climate Reality Project hosted a panel led by Al Gore, which discussed many topics including the questioning of decisions by the UN to host for the third year in a row its COP in autocratic petroleum states (Egypt and United Arab Emirates two years prior) and to allow so many oil lobbyists to attend (1,773 this year). Gore concurred with Cristina Figueres (architect of Paris Agreement), Mary Robinson (former President of Ireland) and other climate leaders that there ought to be strict criteria for oil-dominated countries to host COPs and participate, including clear plans for transitioning from and phasing out fossil fuels and a demonstration of their clear commitments to work toward Paris Agreement goals. Gore articulated these stronger standards for hosting COP and included the need for detailed plans by oil companies and petro nations to phase out and to have clear transparency and accountability. Last year, fossil fuel lobbyists outnumbered scientists, indigenous communities and vulnerable nations combined. Gore also recommended that COP move from consensus decision-making (requiring everyone to agree and allowing single countries too much power) to more of a super majority vote.
Ukraine and Youth
This morning, a panel of youth from Ukraine, Poland, Latvia and Sweden) shared their frustrations with meaningful youth engagement at COP, and prior to the session showed a video of many youth climate activists who could not attend COP for economic and military reasons. Beniamin Strzelecki – a member of the UN Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change and now a grad student at Columbia University, shared his frustration with EU countries still buying fossil fuels from Russia, thus accelerating climate change and supporting Russian war efforts. Youth leaders raised the issue of youth not being taken seriously and not being respected, and not having adequate financial support to build their coalitions and represent at COP summits. The point was raised that there are 3.5 billion youth on the planet, and youth are token participants without real access to decision-makers. They shared that their roles ought to be to connect youth to youth and to decision-makers (part of SGA’s It’s Our Future local agenda) and to have real input on COP decisions.
Global Stocktake
We attended a meeting of the Global Stocktake party committee, designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of the world’s progress on climate action which is guided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommendations to reduce GHG emissions by 43% by 2030 from 2019 levels, 60% by 2035 and 84% by 2050. The Global Stocktake is a two-year process that happens every 5 years (next report will be in 2028). The last report stated that the world is significantly off track to meet Paris Agreement commitments and goals. The committee was preparing its opening framework and statement, which while there was some debate around specific provisions seemed to be poised to move forward.