Sustainability news

For many years, governments and civil society groups in the global South have been demanding that their countries should have easier, low-cost access to green technologies.  These are meant to bring several environmental benefits including reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.  Responding to such demands, COP27 extended the Technology Mechanism of the UN Climate Convention. 

Tens of millions of people affected, for days and weeks, in all sectors.  Significant and widespread disruption and impacts on the environment, agriculture, industry, energy and utilities, emergency services, transport, and cities. Red extreme weather warnings, temperature records broken, and declaration of a national health emergency.

Welcome to drought in the UK, 2022.

Last year I was privileged to attend COP26 in Glasgow as an official observer for the Open University. I’d heard plenty of negative comments about the previous COPs from activist friends, but I was glad to have the opportunity to experience one for myself. It was an insightful even fascinating week. You can read my blog here:

COP26 an activist's viewpoint – My experiences inside the COP26 global climate summit in 2021 (wordpress.com)

Climate change is not new.  Ever since there was a climate on Earth, repeated cycles of ice ages and warming have occurred naturally over billions of years. 

But rapid industrialisation of many economies has altered the Earth’s climate system.  Emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from human activities has increased from less than 1 billion tons per year in 1800 to 35 billion tons per year in 2020.  There is now widespread agreement by the scientific community that current global warming is unequivocally the result of human influence. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, COP26 begins in Glasgow tomorrow”, announced Prince Charles. “Quite literally, it is the last chance saloon. We must now translate fine words into still finer actions.”

One year on, and policymakers, diplomats and NGOs from around the globe are meeting for COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, to build on the pledges of the previous year. These included agreements to limit global heating to an average 1.5C above pre-industrial times (currently at around 1.2C, and a step up from limiting it to 2C as agreed in Paris, 2015).