The twenty-seventh United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP27) on climate change begins this Sunday. This year the conference is held in Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt). Delegates from all around the world are summoned to discuss political and economic solutions to the climate crisis. The science is clear: the cause of recent climate change is greenhouse gas emissions due to human activities. The main task of the conference is therefore to review (and possibly strengthen) national commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, also called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and find ways to implement them.

This is happening following the outcomes of previous COPs, especially the Paris Agreement of 2015 and the Glasgow Climate Pact of 2021. A difficult task, given that global emissions rebounded in recent years and are again on the rise, after the small reduction caused by the pandemic. Also, many national governments are not giving the climate crisis the attention it deserves. Speaking of NDCs, the website Climate Action Tracker uses several indicators to assess individual countries commitments to reduce emissions; for example, EU commitments are judged insufficient. Unfortunately, at a global scale things are not going much better. A recent United Nations report states that there is no chance of achieving the Paris Agreement goals with the currently pledged NDCs.

A lot of irons in the fire, in short. One of the most discussed topics in recent years is called “loss and damage”. In essence, it is a reparation scheme for damages and risk reduction investments in developing countries for climate change adaptation. It is a very hot issue (pun intended), given that over the last decades extreme events greatly increased in intensity and frequency, claiming more than half a million lives in these countries, while often not being even covered by Western media.

The recent climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions, thus it is natural to assume that the money for climate reparations should come from the countries that have contributed the most to creating the problem. This is part of the broader concept of “climate justice”: the countries who have contributed least to the problem are the ones suffering the most from the climate crisis. Overall, splitting the world population in half between those who live in the richest countries and those living in the poorest countries, the richest half is responsible for more than 80% of global emissions. China, the USA and the European Union alone contribute to about half of the global emissions. This does not even take into account the fact that some rich countries “subcontract” part of their emissions to others, for example by relocating their industrial production or energy generation in developing countries. Historically, the 5 countries that have produced the most greenhouse gas emissions are the USA, China, Russia, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Top 10 countries worldwide by percentage of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions from 1750 to 2020 (Source:Our World In Data).

Unfortunately, a good agreement between the parties has not yet been reached on the issue of loss and damage, due to the inadequate responses of the aforementioned “guilty” countries, despite the issue having been discussed for decades now. The developed countries have pledged to allocate 100 billion dollars a year, but have not yet fulfilled their  commitment. If you think that’s a lot of money, consider that it is much less than what is annually allocated to subsidise fossil fuels ($400 billion in 2019 alone). There is no agreement on who should be more committed on the issue. Some countries blame others for not doing enough to reduce emissions, while the latter accuse the former of hypocrisy. The usual blame game. On the other hand, developing countries are increasingly pressing for their concerns on the matter to be heard. Many of them are forming groups such as the V20, made by the 20 most vulnerable countries to climate change. The conference takes place in Egypt, a developing country themselves, suggesting that loss and damage will be pivotal to the meeting.

Climate justice is not only meant to address emissions at a country level, but also at the individual level. There has been a lot of arguing lately about the so-called personal “ecological footprint”, i.e. the impact that our individual behaviour has on the environment. This metric is criticised by some, who argue that it’s been used to blame individuals for the current situation, so as to prevent systemic change. Others believe it can be a useful indicator for measuring the impact of our lifestyle on the environment. Any way you think, it is estimated that the richest 1% of the world population has caused about 25% of global emissions in the last thirty years, with serious repercussions at a social level.

Climate change is a huge challenge affecting all of us, and can only be tackled with a global approach. Repairing the damage and reducing the impact of extreme events in the most vulnerable countries can be a way for rich countries to stop being blamed as the “cause” of the problem, as it is to help developing countries to have an economic growth more sustainable.

Note: The original version of this article can be found here: https://www.noidiminerva.it/chi-ha-causato-il-cambiamento-climatico/.