In the wake of the upcoming COP27 climate summit taking place this Sunday, U.N Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that nations would face irreversible catastrophe unless they rapidly deliver on the commitments made during the 2015 Paris climate summit. The upcoming summit, convening in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, on Sunday, renews hope for a world battered with interconnected climate crises.
António Guterres addressed the public with a newfound urgency, “COP27 must be the place to rebuild trust and re-establish the ambition needed to avoid driving our planet over the climate cliff. In the last few weeks, report after report has painted a clear and bleak picture.”
One of these bleak reports included recent projections from UNESCO. Allegedly a third of the world’s glaciers which have been declared world heritage sites, will disappear by 2050 regardless of whether or not nations implement drastic measures to curb fossil fuel emissions. According to the report, glaciers in Yosemite National Park, California, and Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, will be among the world heritage sites projected to disappear by mid-century.
Another report recently published by the U.N Environment Program found that wealthy nations are currently failing their previous commitments to aid poor countries attempting to adapt to climate change. The report found that “ the cost of adapting to climate change could top a half-trillion dollars annually by mid-century — dwarfing the less-than-$30 billion dollars countries have so far received to adapt to the climate crisis.”
Just this year, after hurricanes submerged one-third of Pakistan’s land mass, the United States pledged to donate 0.01% of the funds necessary to reconstruct the country. It’s vital to remember that while the Global South currently faces the brunt of climate change’s impacts, the citizens of those countries have contributed the least to our current climate crisis. This phenomenon, labeled “Climate Apartheid” is best underscored by the recent Climate Change Risk Index of 2021 report, which claims Pakistan is ranked eighth among countries most vulnerable to climate crisis despite contributing less than 1% to global carbon emissions.
When scientists in the developed world, most notably in the United States and the U.K, protest their governments lack of action, they are immediately thrown in jail. Although their tactics have become increasingly desperate their protests have fallen on deaf ears. In April of this year, a climate activist from Colorado set himself on fire on the steps of the Supreme Court as the court heard arguments to further limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to prevent pollution.
