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Welcome to World Ocean Radio…
I’m Peter Neill, Founder of the World Ocean Observatory.
Everywhere on the news these past weeks have been reports from Belem Brazil where COP 30 was held, the annual Conference of the Parties response to the challenge of climate change, a process extending from the Paris Agreement negotiated and ratified in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization, thereafter ratified by a majority of its 195 Member countries. There have been subsequent annual meetings designed to transform use of fossil fuels, reduce emissions, finance new alternative technologies, and compensate under-developed countries most affected through financial pledges by national governments, private organizations, and corporations. After some years of progress and optimism, the trend has suddenly changed, as recently pledges have not met expectations or not paid at all, and the influence of vested interests, especially the energy countries and petro-states, has increased from predictable early opposition to present-day active co-option of the agenda and a dramatic reversal of interest and engagement. For example, the attendance at the COP30 meetings by energy company lobbyists has grown exponentially; the most recent meetings have been held in oil producing countries, and now, this year, the United States, once a leader of the political movement and generous participant in the financial commitments made, did not attend the meeting at all.
There were thousands of delegates present, at significant expense, to demonstrate their contribution toward a climate solution, to justify years of public and private research, policy development, and public involvement. The audience comprised national leaders, bureaucrats, NGO administrators, and private citizens, organized and enthused by the idea of progress. Climate conditions have only worsened over the years: drought, extreme weather events, coastal inundation from sea-level rise, and wildfire—a condition especially critical in Brazil, in the Amazon region where deforestation for agriculture and, yes, oil and mineral exploration, has flourished. [A terrible irony occurred: the break-out of a serious fire in the main conference hall that forced the evacuation of hundreds of delegates, as if fleeing the actuality of what gives urgency to their efforts to reverse such destructive occurrence in nature.]
Bloomberg Green, a news agency, has provided a succinct analysis, a scorecard of the outcomes of the meeting: “Losses: road maps to exit fossil fuels and stop deforestation were NOT in the final text; the term “fossil fuels” did not make it into the Mutirao final declaration; the world’s biggest emitter snubbed the talks; and national climate plans remain far weaker that what’s needed to limit warming.
Wins: climate adaptation pledges to triple finance by 2030; multilateralism endures in a fraught political landscape; Brazil draws US$6 billion for its tropical forest funds; and indigenous people are recognized as key stewards of lands and forests.”
The presence of indigenous people was exceptional, as that population has not been invited or evident in previous meetings. They were there in large numbers, in traditional dress and angry messaging, demonstrating outside, and actually invading the meeting space inside as an energetic expression of their anger over past exclusion and neglect and past indifference to climate-induced conditions that diminish their living, community health, and cultural connection to the Amazon and its watershed as the essence of their quality of life.
The meeting has now disbanded; [the delegates dispersed by jet-fueled transport.] Other conferences and COPs will follow. I have attended several zoom meetings since to hear reports from various environmental organizations that attended. Each has presented a “best foot forward,” enthusiasm for their participation and presentation, disappointment at the outcome, and what it means for their particular interest and agenda. I have said here before that “hope is not a plan,” nor is doubling down on a past strategy that has failed. Do we dare to confront reality and conduct a radical revaluation? Should we explore what we haven’t done to invent a more successful approach?
Of course, my bias is clear: the understanding of water as the integrating natural force for sustainability and survival; the schematic of rivers as an architecture for change; and the role of the ocean as essential focus and locus for adaptation, mitigation, and invention to return climate and its beneficence to our embrace. It should be noted that in COP30 conference halls, workshops, and presentations the ocean was hardly mentioned at all.
We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio.
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