These days environmental activists from around the world are making strong demands on world leaders gathering at COP26. Among them, the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who along with three other youth leaders has sent an open letter with five specific requests to stop climate change that people from all over the world can sign. The objective is to pressure so that the countries fulfill – and increase – their commitments in the face of the climate crisis.
Signatories increase second by second. The open letter of the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, the Ugandan Vanessa Nakate, the Polish Dominika Lasota and the Filipino Mitzi Tan It is a viral sensation that makes visible the concern for the climate crisis of people from all over the world.
The letter has been launched on the Avaaz platform in the middle of the COP26 climate summit, the United Nations meeting that brings together Heads of State and Government from around the world in order to debate the main environmental challenges and set concrete goals to stop them. .
In these early days, the media spots have focused on the hegemonic speeches of politicians. However, multiple climate activists have also traveled to Glasgow, Scotland, the site of the summit, with clear demands.
Far from the optimism and pride that the main world leaders show regarding their commitments, it contrasts the cry of a generation of young people who accuse the ruling class of “treason.” Among them Thunberg, who launched the global petition with the following five petitions, for which he calls, along with many others, for immediate action.
Act immediately to keep global warming below 1.5 ° C
The first bullet of the letter sent to Glasgow calls on world leaders to “keep alive the cherished goal” of keeping the global temperature below 1.5 ° C and achieving this with immediate annual greenhouse gas emission reductions, ” like never before seen in the world, “says the letter.
And it is that the little implementation of the promises made in previous summits make many activists doubt the seriousness of the countries. In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed, in which the attached countries undertook to keep the increase in global average temperature below 2ºC and to be able to be below 1.5ºC.
But this commitment was not followed by actions to fulfill it. The UN warned last week that the figure could increase to 2.7 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era and even, in a scenario in which the current consumption model is not changed, the world could get up to 4ºC.
The UN Environment Program warned that there are only 8 years to halve emissions. “To have a chance to limit global warming to 1.5ºC, we have eight years to cut greenhouse gas emissions by almost half (…). The clock is ticking out loud,” said the executive director of UNEP, Inger Andersen, in a statement.
In order to achieve the objectives, it is necessary to curb the emission of greenhouse gases, but in 2020 and, despite the pandemic, a new record for the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was once again recorded.
End the promotion of fossil fuels immediately
The second demand of the activists is to “immediately stop all investments, subsidies and new projects related to fossil fuels and stop new exploration and extraction” of these energy sources.
A request that does not find an echo worldwide. The OECD and the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that many countries are being attracted to subsidize fossil fuels to alleviate the rise in prices that consumers are experiencing after the economic crisis of the pandemic, among other reasons.
According to OECD data, consumer subsidies are going to skyrocket this year, in 42 countries analyzed, 244% compared to 2020, increasing the amount to 440,000 million dollars. A figure that contrasts with that of 2020, when, after the collapse of prices due to the pandemic, subsidies were reduced to 180,000 million dollars.
This tendency to bet on fossil fuels as a way to alleviate the economic damage contrasts with the promises heard at COP26. At the global level, 49 countries, and the European Union as a bloc, have promised to achieve a state of carbon neutrality by 2050.
In addition, the United Nations indicates that of the G20, the group of twenty developed and emerging countries, only ten members “are likely” to achieve their original commitments following the policies currently applied.
In fact, there is also concern that only a few countries in the world currently have a high enough carbon price to push polluters to cut emissions and switch to other energy sources.
With this series of policies in place, the pressure from activists becomes more and more notorious and necessary in order for leaders to fulfill their environmental promises and that these do not remain only in the headlines.
Transparency in the figures of the carbon that is expelled into the atmosphere
The next demand is to end what some activists call “creative carbon accounting” (indices that do not account for all gas emissions) by publishing the total emissions of all consumption indices, including “supply chains, aviation and international shipping and biomass burning, “the letter states.
This has been one of the recurring complaints of the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.
In August, when Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, announced that he had reduced emissions of gases into the atmosphere by 42% compared to 1990 levels, Thunberg called the message a “lie”, accusing the British country of “accounting carbon creative “.
The activist denounces that world leaders raise their figures on the fight against climate change by publishing balance sheets that frequently do not include emissions caused by aviation, maritime transport, subcontracting or imports to consumption, among others.
Financing the climate transformation of poor countries
Another request is to deliver “100 billion dollars” that rich countries have promised to countries more vulnerable to climate change and with fewer resources and, in addition, to grant “additional funds” to these nations for climate disasters that already present many of them, such as floods, forest fires or droughts.
Among the 2015 Paris agreements, the obligation of rich countries, responsible for 75% of greenhouse gas emissions, to collect between 2020 and 2025, 100,000 million dollars annually for developing countries, with the objective of combat climate change.
However, the OECD published a report that indicated that in 2020 they had only collected 79.6 billion dollars of that corresponding to that year. In addition, the organization has been skeptical and does not believe that the funding gap can be closed until 2023.
Precisely, in his speech, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, also made reference to the need to verify that the money reaches those countries.
“The countries in Africa, the Pacific, the Caribbean, and Latin America and South America that need it most are not the ones that receive more of this funding, we know it,” Macron denounced in his speech at the COP26 leaders’ summit at the Scottish city of Glasgow.
For their part, developing nations say they cannot shift to a low-carbon economy without financial support from richer countries, which are historically the main responsible for carbon emissions.
Climate policies that reduce all forms of inequality
The last point of the letter urges political leaders to implement not only climate policies to fight global warming, but also to protect workers and the “most vulnerable” citizens to reduce “all forms of inequality. “.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been reporting the increase in migrants in different regions of the planet due to the effects of climate change, phenomena such as extreme temperatures, rising sea levels, droughts or storms.
Paradoxically, it is the people least responsible for climate change who are most vulnerable to its consequences. According to the Red Cross, since the pandemic began, climate-related disasters seriously affected the lives of at least 139 million people and of the 25 countries most vulnerable to climate change, there are 14 that are also mired in armed conflict.
That is why the organization has requested, in the framework of COP26, that countries ensure attention focused on the most vulnerable people, that they increase financing for the adaptation of poor countries and communities, that they invest in prevention, that they convert commitments worldwide in local actions and that protect the environment by complying with international humanitarian law.
COP 26 will end on November 12 and after multiple promises from leaders, it will only remain to be seen in the coming years what the real scope of these speeches is.
For now, thousands of activists are pressing for the actions to materialize. The letter to Glasgow, which was published after the start of the summit, has reached, in just a couple of days, more than 1,560,000 signatures.
With EFE, Reuters and AP
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