A COP of Doom
At a Local Futures conference in 2010, I was asked what chance I thought humans had of surviving past this century, and I said less than 1%. Some jaws dropped, but my opinion has not wavered in the years since. I’ve got doomer cred, and aim to keep it.
I often think the best strategy for me would be to find a place high in the bleachers from which to watch the Great Unraveling, a popcorn bucket in my lap. Maybe a cave in Greenland. But I also believe in the axiom that doing nothing assures defeat, while doing something might surprise you and succeed. Hence the title of this blog, The Great Change. Place yourself decades into the future, in a happy, healthy, abundant world, and backcast a way to get to there from here. Many favorable pathways exist, even now.
This is the time of year when those of us with the forlorn notion that the coming climate might still be survivable come together like mountain men at a summer black powder rendezvous. Instead of exchanging beaver pelts, we exchange indigenous prayers and QR codes. This year, the 31st rendezvous is in Antalya, Türkiye.
A few blocks uptown from where she was speaking, in the rusting UN tower overhanging the East River, Murat Kurum, Turkish Minister of the Environment, was sworn in as President of the COP31 Climate Conference that opened yesterday. Back on that sunny September day, he told the gathered senior representatives from more than 20 countries, “There is a strong consensus regarding the urgency of the climate crisis…. Now is the time to turn existing commitments into measurable results on the ground through dialogue, consensus and action.”
To get onto this pathway, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions would have to be reduced by 18 percent by 2030, 45 percent by 2035 and 69 percent by 2040, all relative to 2025 levels. Increasing levels of Carbon Dioxide Removal through the century would also be needed for a return to 1.5°C. By contrast, the full implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) would only reduce emissions by 5-8 percent by 2030 and 11-15 percent by 2035, relative to 2025 levels – leaving the world on track to only limit warming this century to 2.6°C.
— UNEP, Emissions Gap Report, 2026
This morning, while surfing the UN Web TV site for live feeds from Türkiye, I came across something I had not seen before. It was the opening of the Special Session of the Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption held in Vienna just last Friday. The video was nearly 9 hours long, but I watched the opening remarks by Ms. Monica Juma, the Executive Director of UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime).
For more than 2 decades, the Convention has set the global standard for preventing and combating corruption and recovering its proceeds.
With 193 State Parties, this Convention has united almost the entire world around the common that common purpose. For over 15 years, the Review Mechanism has helped keep that purpose alive. The U57NCAC has given countries a way to examine and scrutinize each other’s progress. It lends greater credibility to our collective efforts, and it holds us to the standards we have agreed upon together.
The results speak for themselves. To date, 376 country reviews have been completed. These have resulted in more than 11,000 follow-up recommendations, recorded more than 1,700 good practices, and identified more than 75,000 technical assistance needs. Crucially, these reviews have helped prompt real reform.
These changes matter because they make a real difference on the ground, strengthening economies and strengthening communities and their relationship with governments. They help protect public resources and the people who depend on them, hold corrupt actors accountable, and recover the proceeds of corruption.
Prior to seeing this, I was unaware there even was a UN Convention Against Corruption. It was as if Elon Musk had handed me a chainsaw and told me to cut out waste and fraud without telling me—or knowing himself—that the mechanism for doing that had already been invented, had been operating for years, and was far more sophisticated and effective than anything he imagined. It was called Inspectors General.
Compare climate. People like to besmirch the United Nations and the slow, tedious process of reaching multilateral consensus and then enforcing the Paris treaty. Jim Hansen says the COPs are “half-arsed and half-baked,” and “deader than a doornail.” He dismissed the Paris Agreement as “a hoax that governments have played on us since the 1990s.” Kevin Anderson calls the UNFCCC “a scam cover for fossil fuels.” He calls carbon capture a “pseudo-technology” and “snake oil” used to delay immediate curtailment.
I agree with Anderson that the international community must stop hiding behind eloquent documents, acknowledge failure, and recognize that wealthy, high-emitting populations need immediate, drastic lifestyle change. There is, to quote Howard Odum, “a prosperous way down.” It just doesn’t contain trillionaires and their yachts. Happiness, sans consumerism, can still be a growth industry.
“Some activists have criticized Democrats for so-called “climate hushing” even as most people in the US favor the end of the fossil fuel era, but [Rep. Sean] Casten [D-IL] said emissions reductions will matter more to the new Congress than rhetoric.
“We are going to do everything – oversight, legislation and action through the courts,” he said. “There are things around the cost of gas, or housing and insurance that are climate conversations even if we don’t mention climate. It’s our job to understand how all those things are connected but we have to talk about climate change to people in a way that is salient to them. It’s not that we don’t want to talk about climate change at all.””
In Antalya, Murat Kurum will have his work cut out for him. This week is for the high-level delegates who come to Türkiye to do the speechifying. They will brag about their progress, compliment the host, set higher, probably impractical targets, and then hit the party circuit. This is any local posh caterers’ bonanza of the decade.
Next week, their underlings—the diplomatic corps line and file—have the more difficult job of crafting a results document—an “Action Agenda 2026”—and trotting it out to the press. Thanks to a June PreCOP in Bonn, the Turkish presidency has the Agenda already at Kinkos. It was formally approved on Day One.
Zero waste: advancing the circular economy and reducing methane emissions from waste. The target is to reduce projected solid-waste growth by 50 percent.
Oceans and seas: strengthening the resilience of marine ecosystems and solutions based on blue carbon.
Food security: transforming agriculture and food systems into more sustainable, resilient models.
Climate-resilient cities: promoting infrastructure, buildings and urban planning that are adapted to climate change. The goal is to reduce building energy consumption by 25 percent.
Climate Implementation Bridge: connecting climate commitments to investment, financing and execution.
Youth and education: increasing youth participation and climate literacy.
Green industrialization: promoting low-carbon, competitive industrial pathways.
Clean energy transition: accelerating electrification, energy grids and access to clean energy. The goal is to increase the share of global energy demand met by electricity to 35 percent by 2035.
Rio synergies: integrating climate, biodiversity and the fight against desertification.
Dynamic and resilient health systems: strengthening the health response to climate risks.
Like the UNCAC process described by Monica Juma, the UNFCCC has a platform that records and displays climate commitments and initiatives from companies, cities, regions and other actors. It is called the NAZCA Portal. It was launched in 2014. It has full transparency, if not an interdimensional warp door. But as with the incoming Congress, the difference, and our common future, hinges not on grandly stated agendas, nor on exposés and public shaming, but on placing real consequences on scofflaws. As Tom Hardy’s character Harry DaSouza says in Mobsters, “The number one rule has always, always been: ‘Don’t fuck with rules.’
What to watch this week:
Some of these are live-streamed, and some recorded for on-demand viewing.
“From Burned Residue to Bankable Removal: Aggregation as the Financing Model for Biochar in Africa” Interactive workshop at the Think Negative Pavilion (D250), #COP31 - Blue Zone in Antalya — Monday 9 November, 14:30–15:30 Turkiye Standard Time
“Addressing Durability in Nature-Based Carbon Removal” at the Think Negative Pavilion (D250), #COP31 - Blue Zone in Antalya — Monday 9 November, 16:00–17:00
“From Rock, Steel and Waste: Türkiye’s Industrial Pathways to Carbon Removal” at the Think Negative Pavilion (D250), #COP31 - Blue Zone in Antalya — Monday 9 November, 16:00–17:00
“Carbon Farming and Carbon Removal in Italy: from skills to certified supply chains – Practical case studies: from field to plant.” IBI Chair Lucia Brusegan will lead a session on biochar, its many applications, and its potential contribution to carbon removal, climate action, and a more circular economy. Italy Pavilion – Blue Zone, Area B2, November 10 | 3:30 PM
“𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿: 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝘂𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗮𝗹” The panel follows biochar from agricultural and forestry residues through production, soil and material applications, and verified carbon removal credits. Think Negative Pavilion (D250), Blue Zone, ANFAŞ Antalya Expo Center. Wednesday 11 November 9:30–10:30
• Lucia Brusegan, International Biochar Initiative Chairwoman (Moderator)
• Giulia Marzetti, Climate and Sustainability Leader, ForestSync
• Alessandro Pozzi President, ichar – Associazione Italiana Biochar
• David Chiaramonti, Chair, CEM Biofuture Platform
• Kwangyul Peck, President, International Biochar Asia Pacific (IBAP)
• Cara Maesano, Scientific and Technical Director, CDR2030
• Renat Heuberger, CEO, HUSK.
Albert Bates has attended and spoken at UN climate conferences since the UNFCCC was founded, and has led Blue Zone delegations for the Global Ecovollage Network at many. His book, The Paris Agreement (2015), describes how that landmark treaty was achieved and contains the full text of the Agreement.
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#RestorationGeneration.
We have a complete solution. We can restore whales to the ocean and bison to the plains. We can recover all the tremendous old-growth forests. We possess the knowledge and tools to rebuild savannah and wetland ecosystems. Coral reefs rebuilt with biorock build beaches faster than the seas are rising. It is not too late. All of these great works of nature are recoverable. We can have a human population sized to harmonize rather than destabilize. We can have an atmosphere that heats and cools just the right amount, is easy on our lungs and sweet to our nostrils with the scent of ten thousand flowers. All of that beckons. All of that is within reach.
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