Dooming COP 27, Part III: Lines in the Sand
"Asking England and the US to pay for the environmental damage of the Industrial Revolution is like Latin America asking Spain for reparations for 1492."
At the climate week coinciding with the reopening of the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry of Egypt used his 3 minutes at the podium to urge wealthy countries to make good on old commitments. He had a valid point when it came to the bribe Hillary Clinton had offered underdeveloping countries in Cancun in 2010 and later penciled into closing negotiations for the Paris Agreement in 2015. She told Egypt, among others, that if they could go along with Obama’s slow walk on any binding climate treaty the overdeveloped countries would pledge $100 billion annually (from private, not governmental, sources, she said) towards a “Green Climate Fund” under the unbiased auspices of the Global Environmental Facility, founded in 1991 by Egyptian-American Mohamed El-Ashry.
Shoukry said, with justification, that $100 billion would have been a good start in 2010 but that it should be clear to everyone by now that trillions annually are needed. It was when he let the caboose loose and called for wealthy countries to pay “loss and damage” reparations to developing nations that his train went off the rails. Granted the underdeveloping are suffering the worst impacts of the climate crisis and contributed proportionately little to its causes. “So world, show me the beef!” he said.
First, let’s recall that Wendy’s Where’s the Beef” could have been the best ad campaign of 1984 had not Apple’s 1984 video commercial been the best ad of all time.
Clara Peller died in 1987 but will be forever celebrated by meme-archivists as the diminutive octogenarian who uttered the famous hamburger challenge, assuming Sameh Shoukry doesn’t try to steal her trademark. He is slated to lead the COP when it convenes in Sharm El Sheikh next week.
The UNFCCC COP27 decodes as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 27th Conference of Parties to the Paris Agreement. Having gotten back into the Agreement just in time, the United States will send a full delegation of diplomats and celebrities to proclaim what a good job Joe Biden is doing towards meeting the UN’s somewhat bland and uninspiring Paris goals. In trademark aviator shades, he and Jill will pose with camels and pyramids. The US delegation will attempt to play down the backroom deals it cuts to squash insurgent drives towards greater ambition and stronger Paris targets led by small island nations. Shoukry has now telegraphed he will single out the Clinton bribe and demand a payment schedule. That is a clever start.
However, his second shoe that fell at climate week was a reference to the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. He might have had a chance getting the West to ante up some cash for development projects targeting climate Mitigation and Adaptation, but Loss and Damage has been and will remain, a non-starter. Asking England and the US to pay for the environmental damage of the Industrial Revolution is like Latin America asking Spain for reparations for the genocide and slavery of the Colombian Encounter, or First Nations asking for the U.S. to now kindly get out of North America, thank you very much for the iPhones. Those retreats and reparations might even be beneficial for the planet, but they aren’t likely to happen. South Africa asking the Dutch to pay for the slaves they sold and Palestine asking Lord Balfour’s heirs to unpartition the Transjordan are like Russia demanding the return of Ukraine. It's history now. Get over it.
I actually agree with emeritus diplomats like Todd Stern who have resisted retroactive Loss and Damage provisions for 30 years. They’re not going to happen. Shoukry should not hinge the success of his Egypt COP on getting that done any more than Putin should expect his Checzen conscripts to return unscathed and unhumiliated from the Donbass meat grinder.
Watching these childish melodramas played out at an hour so late in the day for reversing climate change is profoundly disturbing. Were it not for the natural climate solutions that beckon and will transform everything in just a few years, I might even get depressed.
Meanwhile, lets end this war. Towns, villages and cities in Ukraine are being bombed every day. Ecovillages and permaculture farms have organized something like an underground railroad to shelter families fleeing the cities, either on a long-term basis or temporarily, as people wait for the best moments to cross the border to a safer place, or to return to their homes if that becomes possible. So far there are 62 sites in Ukraine and 265 around the region. They are calling their project “The Green Road.”
The Green Road is helping these places grow their own food, and raising money to acquire farm machinery and seed, and to erect greenhouses. The opportunity, however, is larger than that. The majority of the migrants are children. This will be the first experience in ecovillage living for most. They will directly experience its wonders, skills, and safety. They may never want to go back. Those that do will carry the seeds within them of the better world they glimpsed through the eyes of a child.
Those wishing to make a tax-deductible gift can do so through Global Village Institute by going to http://PayPal.me/greenroad2022 or by directing donations to greenroad@thefarm.org.
There is more info on the Global Village Institute website at https://www.gvix.org/greenroad
The COVID-19 pandemic has destroyed lives, livelihoods, and economies. But it has not slowed down climate change, which presents an existential threat to all life, humans included. The warnings could not be stronger: temperatures and fires are breaking records, greenhouse gas levels keep climbing, sea level is rising, and natural disasters are upsizing.
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