Sustainability professionals often say we’re building a better world for future generations. How much further into the future do we need to go?
Looking at all the glad-handing and pale, male, stale panels in Sharm El-Sheikh these past two weeks, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’re in the clear. But this year’s UN climate conference, COP 27, has become just more greenwashing and empty platitudes.
I’ve spent two decades in the business of saving our Earth. That includes time spent inside the UN, with the COP Secretariat, and UNEP. After leaving my role at the United Nations, I travelled the world studying the impacts of sustainability first-hand in factories, on fields, and at Fortune 500s.
Things looked very different when I worked with the COP Secretariat in 2008. Of course, these conferences have evolved since then. We’ve had important meetings in Paris, Copenhagen, and Glasgow. However, what I’m seeing coming out of Egypt this year is especially concerning.
Foxes in the henhouse
Firstly, the foxes seem to be guarding the henhouse.
While UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made an impassioned speech demanding a crackdown on greenwashed net-zero commitments, what about all the greenwashing happening at COP itself?
Coca-Cola, one of the world’s biggest plastics polluters, was a key sponsor of the conference.
The Climate Action Tracker notes there are precisely zero countries on track to meet their Paris climate targets, yet many are setting up national pavilions to host lavish events. My personal favourite is Australia, which with zero sense of irony or optics, partnered with the Carbon Market Institute to run panels.
Red carpet optics
Secondly, this isn’t the Grammys.
The whole COP experience has turned into a circus. The conference I worked at in Istanbul was full of people who could get the job done: subject-matter experts, civil society, and a few political delegates. This past month, my LinkedIn feed has been bombarded with everyone from CEOs to investors to unknowns flying to the desert to discuss saving the planet. They’re taking red carpet photos for clout and hosting panel after panel. But is any of this going to translate into the critical action we need to be seeing?
Mosquitos at a malaria conference
Lastly, the presence of oil lobbyists and the fossil fuel industry was especially concerning.
Greta Thurnburg put it best when she asked if one would invite mosquitoes to a malaria conference. Well, it seems COP27 left the fly-wire screen open.
The Guardian reported an “explosion” of oil and gas 636 representatives attending the event. What’s worse is that these lobbyists outnumbered all delegations, bar one. This, coupled with pushback on language around fossil fuels by Saudi Arabia, is a worrying development signalling just how entrenched these players are in the big picture.
So all of this begs the question: what legacy will COP27 leave?
What legacy will COP27 leave?
The conference gave us many positive outcomes.
Given COP27 was not the most conducive environment for negotiation, these wins are even more impressive.
The uptick in civil society, women, and youth involvement is particularly heartening. While these groups were always present, they really did get a seat at the table in Sharm. That includes Indigenous voices, long placed at the periphery of these events.
We also had the monumental passage of a compensation fund for countries most impacted by climate change. This has been a contentious issue since my days at the UN, so it’s great to see a resolution, even if it is only theoretical at this point.
But I fear history will remember COP27 less for all of these positives and more for its negative optics.
Outsiders must have scratched their heads at the rampant greenwashing, hordes of eco-influencers grabbing the perfect photo op, and hundreds of flights landing in a desert resort town.
Their brains really must have melted from the cognitive dissonance of the fossil fuel lobby getting undue airtime.
Delegates working behind the scenes and into the wee hours wordsmithing a document aimed at positive impact means little if the public doesn’t see it happening. It means even less when the only document they do see is full of technical jargon and undecipherable UN-ese.
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As with COPs past, COP27 was just another instance of running in place. Delegates kicked most of the significant decisions down the road to COP-28. But this is the same thing that’s been happening since the very first COP in 1995.
Sustainability professionals often say we’re building a better world for future generations. How much further into the future do we need to go?
Last month, the UN’s climate watchdog released a report saying there is a 96 per cent probability we’ll pass the critical 1.5 degree global warming threshold in the coming decades.
Ultimately, we need to take a long look in the mirror and gauge whether the COP format is still fit for purpose. Or does its continued existence risk poisoning the well for climate action?