Global Environmental Negotiations in Decline: A Disturbing Picture
The global stage is seeing a series of frustrating impasses as the world’s nations struggle to unite in a common effort to save the planet from several major environmental crises.
In recent months, U.N.-sponsored negotiations aimed at tackling climate change, plastic pollution, global biodiversity loss and expanding deserts have either failed outright or produced limited results that fail to address the scale of the problems.
Experts interviewed by The Associated Press called environmental multilateralism flawed because of a laborious consensus-building process, the power of the fossil fuel industry, geopolitical shifts and the sheer scale of the problems they are trying to solve.
Progress is being made, particularly on climate change, but it is seen as insufficient, too slow and moving in fits and starts, U.N. officials and others have said.
“Is it frustrating? Yes. Is it difficult? Yes,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program. But it is the “only way” for smaller, poorer nations to get a seat at the negotiating table alongside powerful, rich countries, she added. “I wouldn’t call it a total failure.”
That is in stark contrast to the hopeful days of 1987, when the world adopted a treaty that now reverses dangerous stratospheric ozone loss by banning certain chemicals. That was followed in 1992 by the Earth Summit that established a U.N. system for negotiating environmental issues, particularly climate change, called the Conference of the Parties, or COP. A series of such conferences have generally produced mixed results.
The biodiversity COP in Cali, Colombia, in October came up empty, with no major agreement except to acknowledge the efforts of indigenous peoples. The climate change COP in Baku, Azerbaijan, achieved on paper its key goal of increasing funding for poor nations to address global warming, but the limited amount left developing countries unhappy and analysts saying it was not enough.
A meeting on plastic pollution in Busan, South Korea, the following week prompted many countries to express their willingness to act, but it failed to materialize. And the desertification conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, advanced the first steps toward an agreement that will be discussed later.
Nine years ago, when more than 190 nations came together to adopt the historic Paris Agreement, countries were driven by the belief that a healthy planet benefited everyone, but “we’ve lost that vision,” said former U.N. climate secretary Christiana Figueres, who shepherded the deal.
“The U.N. system is the worst system except for all the others. They don’t have another one,” Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland and a member of the advocacy group The Elders, told The Associated Press.
Thirty years ago, when climate conferences began, there were debates about how decisions should be made. A lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry and Saudi Arabia have actively fought against the idea of a majority or supermajority vote, preferring consensus so that every country more or less agrees, said Joanna Depledge, a historian of climate negotiations at the University of Cambridge in England.
Many are calling for new rules to require COP decisions to be made by supermajority, not consensus. But previous attempts have failed.
For 27 years, climate negotiations agreements have never explicitly mentioned “fossil fuels” as the cause of global warming, or called for their elimination. Only after heated debate last year in Dubai did the call for a transition away from fossil fuels come.
All experts have expressed hope, despite or because of what has happened so far. While progress remains limited, the need for more drastic and concerted action for the planet continues to grow.
This impasse in global environmental negotiations underscores the urgency of collective global action to address the critical environmental challenges that threaten our planet. It is essential that the nations of the world act swiftly and decisively to address these challenges and protect our environment for future generations.
It is time to put aside differences and fully engage in concerted efforts to save our planet and ensure a more sustainable future for all.