COP27: Climate Change Hypocrisy

World leaders are presently converging in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt for the United Nations Annual Conference of Parties(COP27) amid an increasing number of crises facing the global population. The 12-day event comes at a time when the world is faced with a myriad of problems; global inflation, drought and hunger,high energy and food prices and political tensions just to mention a few. The conference’s theme is implementation. All this in an effort to find solutions to climate change which is at the core of the world’s problems. COP26 took place in 2021 in Glasgow albeit since then little progress has been made to curb worsening climate crisis. The world has been faced with such crisis since time immemorial but the intensity and frequency of such occurrences has more than quadrupled in the last few decades. This year alone has seen numerous climate-related catastrophes like floods in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria among other places , drought in large parts of Europe and typhons in USA and related areas. However, world leaders still fail to come up with viable solutions. Many conferences to plan and come up with solutions but no action. Might this be the breakthrough,the world has been waiting for? Only time will tell.

COP26 in Glasgow proposed an initiative to limit temperature increase to 1.5°c as a starting point but nothing has been done ensure that this happens. The scientists already issued a warning that global temperatures will be increasing at the rate of 1.5°c by the year 2100. The situation has only worsened. Leaders ignore all the warnings of scientists and continue to do things normally as if nothing has changed recently. It is a case of more talk and less action. Every year numerous conferences are hosted to talk about climate change crisis but no action is seriously put in place to arrest the situation. Every available media opportunity is used to call for actions by leaders who should be at the forefront and lead by example. Talk without action is hypocrisy. In this case of climate change the body is willing but the spirit is weak. The United Nations secretary general Antonio Gutierrez said that we are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator yet the question remains, why the hypocritical stance?

Countries are already reneging on their climate commitments in the face of a looming climate apocalypse. European nations faced with fuel and gas shortages following the sanctions on Russia due to its war in Ukraine did not migrate to green energy but changed suppliers. More gas and oil was sourced from other countries which increased their cabon footprint significantly. Furthermore,since the the beginning of the war, Russia has made astronomical oil and gas sales. The willingness to phase out the use carbon-based sources of energy is very low. Leaders in Egypt for the international conference are emitting massive amount of greenhouse gases. They used hundreds of private jets which emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases which affect the ozone layer to get there. One of the reasons as to why we are in this situation in the first place. Maybe we are not ready for change in terms of green energy. This ship is sinking.

Let’s stop all this futile talk and embark on a dedicated and united travail to tackle this crisis before it becomes irreversible. These bureaucracy and red tapes are making the situation difficult. The urge for making profits is hampering any effort aimed at ameliorating and taking steps towards solutions. Oil companies are making hefty profits amid high inflation and global hunger crisis this year. Can the world put aside its capitalistic proclivity and work towards alleviating the climate crisis? With talks only this might prove to be a tough hill to climb but the humanity has a choice; cooperate or perish.