It is not like it is a binding document. No law will be derived from it. Nobody will be held accountable in 10 or 20 years. Nobody will go prison if not. Nobody will remember their names. Is there even a fine or something?
It is a total feel good self therapy charade.
No, but it is saying that every other country will transition away from fossil fuels and they all signed it. So if somebody says"But X country is not doing their part, so why would we" the answer to this is that we all promised to do it and that country X is an asshole for not transitiong away from fossil fuels. However do you want to live in another asshole country.
At the same time you have a place where some of the most powerfull people in the world talk climate. That means a lot of small iniatives are started on COPs. However small on a global stage still mean billions of dollars and touching millions of lifes.
I‘ve read every summary to every COP since they began in the 90s. I can not share your enthusiasm. It is a talk festival without visible actions. They talk since 30 years and you try to tell me with a straight face that anything significant happened already touching million of people? How? Where? In 2001 at COP6 they agreed on carbon sinks. Where the fuck are they? Twenty-fucking-years and nothing happened. A lot of money is thrown around and a lot of people line their pockets with cash from these funds while every year we have new oil production and CO2 emission records. Please give me your top 3 points of things that actually happened in the last 30 years of talks at COP that I can get your optimism.
For this one there is the very obvious loss and damages fund, which has been brought throu. Then you have the nuclear alliance with a good number of countries planning to tripple nuclear production.
As for COP6 they did not agree on carbon sinks. That was the US trying to basicly say that they have a lot of carbon sinks, so them emitting a lot was totally fine.
As for me being “optimistic” I am not. I am just realistic enough to understand that the COPs are a forum to talk about the issue and some solution will be shown. That is about all that it is. The UN is not a world government and same story for COPs. In the end of the day the key are things like the Past Coal Alliance and similar projects of a smaller number of countries. The loss and damages fund being set up is good news and I bet you we will see more stuff like carbon tariffs in the future.
Take one example, my home country of Canada. Our government has signed on to every climate accord and “commited” to the targets. Have we actually met any of those targets? No. Have there been any new laws or regulations that can have the necessary outcomes, even in principle? No. The “commitments” are not worth the paper they’re written on, let alone the cost of the meeting itself.
Oh sure, there is a bit of picking at nits around the edges, but nothing at a scale that matters. By now, we should already have adapted to the outlawing of new fossil fuel projects of any kind, not still wondering why our “green” government bought a new pipeline project that a private company gave up on.
I just looked up whats going on in Canada. Phase out of combustion engine cars starting with a ban 2035 sounds good, free heat pumps for poor households also sounds like a good plan, having a minimum carbon price is also at least a decent idea.
From what I see the problems are extremly high emissions from trucking, which should be solveable by electrifying the rail network. The other huge problem seems to be massive mining everywhere, which includes a lot of fossil fuels. That should be the easiest one to solve as most Canadians do not work in the mining sector right?
Personally, I am very disappointed by this weak “compromise”. I did not expect a lot from this meeting in a petro-state overrun by fossil lobbyists but seeing what is now sold as big step is very disheartening.
What compromise are you talking about? Wasn’t this exactly what was the goal for majority of the countries, to get coal etc phased out? The previous UAE suggested deal did not include that.
The part that’s disappointing is this:
The new deal is not legally binding and can’t, on its own, force any country to act.
We can’t actually get a binding deal to end fossil fuels out of the COP process though; the ability of the petrostates to veto things they don’t like make that impossible.