From September 18th to September 26th, 2023, world leaders gathered in New York for the 78th edition of the United Nations General Assembly’s High-Level Week (UNGA), an annual event to discuss and resolve global issues. One particular day was dedicated to the “Climate Ambition Summit,” which focused on several topics including decarbonisation, climate justice and the implementation of state regulation to combat climate change. This event came promptly as the world experienced new record-breaking temperatures over the summer of 2023. All eyes were turned towards world leaders to find solutions; instead many heads of state lowered their climate commitments or delayed their implementation.
What are some of the key takeaways from this year’s UNGA? Pete Ogden, vice president for Climate And The Environment at the UN Foundation, shared on the podcast Global Dispatches that the conference was designed as an “accountability moment.” Indeed, the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres went to great lengths to value action over words, by making sure to restrict participation exclusively to heads of state. By doing so, he sent an important message to the global community, designed to encourage states to take these conferences seriously and create a sense of urgency. Despite these efforts, the press picked up on several important missing actors, such as China, India, and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has recently been criticised for slowing down the implementation of the country’s climate commitments. Other missing actors include the United States and the UAE. States that did speak emphasized the issue of fossil fuels. This issue is a recurring theme on the climate agenda, but commitments made during the conference might once again prove to be difficult to reach in a world still heavily dependent on fossil fuels and the stakes of the private sector. The Secretary General’s closing remarks describe the Climate Ambition Summit as the “Climate Hope Summit” while highlighting that “we are in many aspects moving backward.” This idea of “hope” continues to position climate goals into the future rather than grounding them into the present. The gap between the expectations set in the conference and the results showcased by states seems almost paradoxical. There seems yet to be a catalyst strong enough to drive states to match their environmental commitments with concrete actions despite recent dramatic climate related disasters that continue to signal the immediacy of this issue.
The lack of tangible action by leaders at the UNGA Summit is in striking contrast with events observed in the world recently. Headlines from multiple media outlets describe summer 2023 as “the hottest ever recorded” by Le Monde, “the new normal” by the Wall Street Journal, or the phrase “climate breakdown” pronounced by Antonio Guterres. Indeed, this summer, people across the world witnessed dramatic natural disasters. Amongst some of these, we count the tragic wildfires in Canada, in Hawaii, and in Greece. Additionally, ocean acidification has damaged coral reefs in Florida, destructive floods have provoked damage in Libya and New York City; all relating back to climate change. These series of environmental catastrophes have started to noticeably upset the balance of the Earth’s ecosystem. An article from the Guardian has reported that Canada’s forests are becoming “super-emitters”. This means that organisms like trees that traditionally regulated our planet by trapping carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen are now responsible for significant carbon dioxide emissions because of the increasing number of wildfires. Similarly, waters have reached a record 39 degrees celsius in Lake Tefé in Brazil, threatening species who live in these environments such as dolphins and fish, who are unable to adapt to these new conditions. The possible disappearance of some species could endanger the food chain as a whole. All of these chained events illustrate the alarming effects of climate change and the necessity for world leaders to act now.
Although world leaders have committed to numerous binding and non-binding agreements over the years to align state development with sustainable growth, the implementation of these has been slow. International environmental agreements have been made over the course of several decades, the first non-binding commitment dating as far back as 1972, with the Earth Summit in Stockholm. Later, states gathered together to elaborate binding commitments like the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Agreement (2015) to monitor long term progress. This year 2023 marks the halfway point to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and was expected to reveal the progress built over decades. Instead, over the course of this year, several world leaders have backed out of their agreements. In March of this year, United States President Biden sparked controversy when he approved the Willow Project, a lucrative oil and gas drilling project in Alaska likely to have a grave ecological impact on species living there. Canada has also announced that it will apply a cap on emissions from the oil and gas industry this year despite having approved new oil and gas projects. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has publicly backed out of its climate commitments, delaying the diesel and gas car ban from 2030 to 2035. Although this decision was intended to ease the ecological transition in a way that does not harm the economy, critics have argued that depending on volatile fossil fuel prices would be as or more harmful. In France, climate activists participate in an ongoing hunger strike against the construction project of highway A69, which could kill hundreds of trees, a symbolic attempt to encourage the government to approve projects aligned with its sustainable development goals. Once again, the gap between words and actions highlight the fact that global commitments do not guarantee positive change. The frequent practice of backsliding on environmental commitments might prove to be costly for our future as current scientific predictions show.
Looking towards the future, The World Meteorological Organization predicts that “the annual mean global near-surface temperature for each year between 2023 and 2027” could rise as high as “1.8 degrees celsius higher than the 1850-1900 average.” Despite promising important technology being developed to solve climate-related issues, progress is slow. This conference proves once again that there must be important changes on all levels, which we will look closely at as we approach the Dubai COP28 in December. Factors behind global inaction are numerous but a possible explanation could be related to the erroneous idea that economic growth and environmental sustainability are incompatible.
Amongst the many reasons designated to explain the slow implementation of energy transition, the ability to make profit from green technologies is a recurring argument. An article from the Times magazine argued that some private sector actors like oil and gas companies are reluctant to transition to more sustainable sources of energy in times of oil price fluctuations which could generate significant short term profit. A similar argument is made in an article by The Economist which argues that private sector companies are reluctant to manufacture greener technologies because of the high cost of materials imposed by states. As a result, limitations on the ability to make profit from these technologies discourage investment in these projects. This is likely to reinforce a negative cycle of inaction. Climate activist, and explorer, Robert Swan, described in his famous quote, “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” Nature continues to be perceived as a public good that different actors can “free ride” on and which they refuse to help preserve while expecting someone else to do it instead or postpone to a later date. Despite the presence of climate summits like UNGA, states have yet to act urgently and the dystopian fiction of what our world could look like if we do not respond to the effects of climate change is becoming increasingly close to reality as the world shifts to a new normal.
Edited by: Justine Delangle
Victoire Thierry is entering her third year at McGill university studying International Development and Political Science. She is a first-time writer and her interest include sustainability, migration and international relations.