An ecological think tank organisation that advocates for environmental/climate justice, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has said that the globe is not making any strides in the battle against climate change as evidenced by the results of the just finished 27th Conference of Parties (COP 27).
Executive director of HOMEF, Nnimmo Bassey who made this known yesterday while speaking to journalists in Port Harcourt, said that the recently concluded climate change summit in Egypt went in the way of rituals and did not rise beyond the low bars set by previous editions.
“Maybe it rose above the bar in one aspect which could be considered, more or less, the brightest glimmer of hope, appearing in the extended time of the conference,’ he said, claiming that international leaders were reversing prior accords.
He noted that for those who were keeping vigil on the deliberations, it was a roller-coaster session, adding that hope glimmered when many nations unexpectedly rose to say that fossil fuels, all of them, should be phased out, not just the phasing down of unabated coal as was cockily suggested at Glasgow”.
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“Recall that Glasgow only talked of phasing down (not phasing out) of unabated coal (not all coal). Observers gasped and yelped as some nations notorious for blocking any attempt to name fossil fuels as the driver of global heating in the official negotiations shifted positions,”he said.
Speaking further, he said, “however, the flickering candle was snuffed and smashed at the final plenary. So it came to pass, that a handful of nations, including Saudi Arabia and China, threatened to scuttle the entire COP if fossil fuels were called out and their obituary announced.
He accused the COP of playing the ostrich and burying its head in the sand by being unwilling to accept that fossil fuels are literally burning the planet and that the real climate action is to phase out the polluters.
“How come everyone knows that up to 89 per cent of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere emerged from the burning of fossil fuels but the COP chooses to ignore this truth? How come even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) which is the COP thinking hat says that fossil fuels must be addressed, yet the COP plays deaf?he questioned.
Story was adapted from Leadership.
