Will UN Conferences Finally Get Real?

By FRANK LINGO

This fall there will be two United Nations-sponsored conferences on different continents. First in Colombia, a biodiversity conference will address the growing threats to the world’s plants and animals. Then in November, Azerbaijan will host the COP (Conference of the Parties) to tackle the climate crisis.

Your faithful correspondent hopes that meaningful progress will be made at these gatherings – for a change. Last year’s COP in Dubai was considered by many enviro activists to be more show than substance. And this year, the host country is again a petrostate, meaning a great deal of its revenue comes from fossil fuels.

Many of the countries congregate with scant commitment to accomplishing conference goals. That’s because they are authoritarian regimes which treat the Earth exactly as they treat their citizens – like garbage. About 70% of the world’s population live under dictatorship or other oppressive rule, according to Sweden’s Varieties of Democracy Institute. China and India together are almost half the humans on the globe yet their people hold no rights to pursue sustainability.

If Trump wins, America will join the majority of Earth’s denizens and descend into dictatorship. Any chance of climate chaos getting mitigated goes up in smoke.

The World Resources Institute (wri.org) detailed the severity of our ecological crisis in a Sept. 30, 2024 report. In 2023, tropical forests were destroyed at the amount of 10 football fields per minute. One million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction, and almost 70% of the world’s wildlife populations have died off in just the last 50 years.

On the bright side, Brazil and Colombia substantially reduced their rate of rainforest losses in 2023, after their voters restored democracy to those countries. That’s an important example for the rest of the world to follow.

At a similar convention in 2022, the landmark Global Biodiversity Framework was passed with its participants pledging to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and water by 2030; and restore 30% of degraded ecosystems as well. Those are ambitious aspirations that will require great cooperation among nations, a rare occurrence on any issue. Oh, and incidentally there is a $700 billion shortfall between the world’s annual funding for nature and what is needed by 2030 to protect ecosystems.

Another goal of the Framework is to recognize the land rights and authority of Indigenous Peoples, a subject in which the United States has an abysmal record. Native tribes generally treat the land more sustainably but they seldom get the chance to show it.

With the Azerbaijan conference approaching, The New York Times ran an article headlined: “The World Is a Mess. That Makes the Climate Crisis Harder to Solve.” The Times cited 3 big things that have sunk the prospects of global climate cooperation.

First, China dominates the global clean-energy supply chain, fueling economic and political strains that undermine cooperation. China’s capitalist dictatorship has no incentive to stop bullying the world on trade.

Second, rich countries, which have produced most of the pollution that causes global warming, have failed to keep their promises to help poor countries shift away from fossil fuels. This has been happening for decades with little change despite worsening world conditions.

Third, widening wars have become an impediment to climate consensus. Like a barroom brawl in an old cowboy movie, the Earth loses all wars as we squabble among ourselves and destroy our domicile.

Bottom line is that the biodiversity conference and the climate conference are terrific opportunities for ecological evolution. But it will all be for naught unless the Earth’s democracies do their duty and follow through with their pledges to protect the planet.

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. See his website: Greenbeat.world

From The Progressive Populist, November 1, 2024

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