CLIMATE MEET COP 29 – SIGN OF HOPE OR DESPAIR – By N.S.Venkataraman
The forthcoming Climate Meet COP 29 that would take place from November,9 to November,22 at Azerbaijan does not seem to have created any euphoria . On the other hand, there is considerable skepticism about the outcome of the COP 29 , considering the outcome of the earlier 28 climate meets in different countries .
Has anything changed ?
The ground reality is that nothing much has changed over the years and global warming continue to take place, causing severe and unexpected weather changes and several other adverse impacts on climate
One cannot but get an impression that the climate meets have become sort of annual ritual , marked by loud claims , high level of promise and particularly with focus by developing countries demanding fund support from developed countries to implement eco friendly measures to protect global climate.
It is well recognized that to protect the global climate , emission of noxious gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide, methane gas have to be curbed and ultimately eliminated to get zero emission . The first requisite to achieve such drastic reduction in the emission of noxious gases is that the consumption of fossil fuel such as coal, crude oil have to be slashed down and ultimately stopped . This is not happening.
Ambitious targets going for a toss :
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Several countries have fixed target for themselves to achieve zero emission in time bound schedule, with India promising that it would achieve zero emission by the year 2070 while China fixed the deadline of year 2050 and various other schedule by different countries.
While such ambitious targets have been fixed to achieve zero emission , the ground reality is that these promises have not been followed by reduction in the production and use level of coal , crude oil, natural gas and reduction in the emission of methane gas from livestock. Neither the producers of fossil fuel are reducing production nor the consumers of fossil fuel are reducing consumption over the years. On the other hand, consumption of fossil fuel like coal have been steadily increasing, in spite of the promises made during climate meets by different countries. In such circumstances, one gets an impression that all tall promises to reduce emission have been made in vacuum.
Can use of fossil fuel be entirely eliminated ?
It is now well recognized that the substitute for fossil fuel for energy generation are alternate eco friendly energy source such as renewable energy from solar, wind and hydro , increasing production of green hydrogen , increasing the production of biofuel etc. But, the development and production of the alternate eco friendly energy source are slow and nowhere near the level required for matching the need. It is mainly due to several issues with regard to alternate energy source such as high production cost of green hydrogen produced from water source and limitations in wind , solar and hydro power due to seasonal factors and uneconomic capacity utilization as well as curtailment of methane gas emission not happening as livestock population cannot be reduced. While alternate energy source is much needed and should be developed with utmost efforts, still alternate energy source cannot significantly reduce the demand for fossil fuel ,particularly since the energy demand and consequent demand for fossil fuel are steadily increasing.
Why not reduce energy demand ?
One solution on which the climate meets are not focusing is with regard to the possibility of steady reduction in the energy demand , so that the demand for fossil fuel can be brought down. Of course, developing countries would particularly object to the reduction of energy demand, as it would adversely impact the industrial and economic growth of the countries.
Alternately, the demand for energy can be brought down by optimization of energy utilization by technological advancements and development of non energy intensive products and services. However. this can be done only to a limited extent with no significant impact on the overall demand for fossil fuel.
Target population to reduce energy demand:
Possibly, another way of reducing energy demand is to reduce the global population level.
While a few countries such as South Korea, Japan, Russia are concerned about the population level reducing and are taking steps to increase the population by offering special incentives to people, there are countries like India and in Africa where population are steadily increasing. The net result is that the global population is now steadily increasing.
Since more population means more energy demand and more fossil fuel consumption, the COP 29 climate meet should discuss this issue and fix target for level of global population to be reached and to be stabilised at that level.
Impact of wars and conflicts
Even as all countries are concerned about climate issues and almost all of them are participating in the global climate meets, some of the participating countries are indulging in bloody conflicts and wars such as the ongoing Russia Ukraine war and the ongoing Israel Hamas war. Further, terrorist activities are also taking place frequently in different locations. All such wars and terrorist activities involve use of missiles, dropping of bombs, shootings , drone attack and so on which cause emission of huge quantity of toxic gases and cause severe atmospheric pollution. It appears that climate meets have not discussed these aspects at all.
C O P 29 sign of hope or despair ;
The question is whether the forthcoming COP 29 will be more forthright in discussing the issues in depth and calling spade a spade, instead of confining itself to cosmetic discussions.
Based on the proceedings of the past meets, there is certainly justification to view the forthcoming COP 29 climate meet as sign of despair.
