Status: 05.11.2022 17:23
Before other climate conferences, the mood was often optimistic – not this time. Researchers and politicians are already pessimistic before the start of COP27. They see war, conflicts and too lax climate protection plans as problems.
Before the start of the world climate conference on Sunday, scientists and politicians expressed pessimism that great progress could be made there. The COP27 takes place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 40,000 participants from 200 countries are expected.
Mojib Latif, President of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg, was resigned even before the start and questioned the climate conferences as a whole: “There are no breakthroughs,” he told the Bayern media group. The conferences are “unproductive” because “papers with little substance are celebrated as great progress.”
Researchers estimate that global emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases will have to be halved by 2030. The Paris climate goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees if possible can no longer be achieved otherwise. However, the climate protection plans presented by the states so far envisage even further increasing emissions.
The danger: climate tipping points
And even the 1.5 degree target is not enough according to climate researchers. Johan Rockström, one of the directors of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), together with other scientists, explained why in the journal “Science”: It is possible that some tipping points, from which global warming will continue to accelerate by itself, have already were reached.
This includes the thawing of the ice sheets in Greenland and in western Antarctica, he told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” (FAS). Therefore, the target should actually be 1.3 degrees of maximum warming. A warming of 1.2 degrees has already been achieved.
COP27 as “therapy session”
However, Rockstrom said he was a pragmatist and saw “zero” chances of pushing through a more ambitious mark than 1.5 degrees. “The Paris Agreement is the only binding document we have. That’s why I defend it,” he told FAS. He also argued that while Germany should not build new nuclear power plants, it should let the existing ones run longer as long as they are safe.
Ottmar Edenhofer, the other director of PIK alongside Rockström, pointed out in the FAZ that there were “massive distribution conflicts” when it came to money for climate protection in poorer countries. He has low expectations of the meeting. It’s about “establishing a relationship of trust again.” It was “almost like a therapy session”.
Habeck: Industrial nations must lead the way
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is also skeptical about the conference’s chances of success. The world is entering a new period of conflict, if not confrontation, Steinmeier said in the South Korean city of Busan. “It is difficult to imagine that in times of conflict and even military confrontation, states like Russia or China will play a constructive role in and after Sharm El-Sheikh.”
Economics Minister Robert Habeck, whose areas of responsibility in the federal government also include climate protection, nevertheless called for decisive action. The COP27 must bring results, Habeck said in a video published on Twitter, because the world has experienced another “disaster year” with galloping global warming. So far, the world community has not moved enough towards climate neutrality.
Germany must play a pioneering role with other industrialized countries: Although Germany only accounts for around two percent of global emissions, “precisely because Germany has every opportunity, a lot of eyes are on Germany. If we don’t manage it (…), with all our financial and technical possibilities (…), then the other 98 percent will not participate either,” said Habeck.
Timmermanns for stricter EU climate targets
EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans brought up tightened EU climate targets. “We may even manage to present concrete measures in Egypt to reduce our emissions by more than 55 percent,” he told the “Spiegel”. “That would be important, because at the moment hardly anyone is talking about emissions internationally.”
He accused the United States of not contributing financially to the climate fund, which is supposed to be used to pay for climate protection measures for developing countries. “We pay at least $25 billion every year, it’s the Americans who don’t deliver here,” Timmermans said. US President Joe Biden has not kept his promises either. “I understand well that the global South is complaining about this.”