COP22 just didn’t stand a chance against Mr. Trump; newsitems about it seem harder to find then the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Saddam’s Iraque. It is true that COP22, that is the 22th Conference Of Parties to the Kyoto Agreement, which was held in Marrakech from 7 to 18 nov., is not nearly as spectacular as COP21, better known as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Yet it is not without significance: many details and specifics of the Paris Agreement were left to be negociated later and we all know that the devil is in the details. The fact that the Paris Agreement had come into force on nov. 4th, just days before the start of the Marrakech Conference, lends it even more weight.

As always, the conference brought some progress and some disappointments.

Important is that it was agreed that the UN no later then 2018 will report on what the individual countries did to mitigate climate change and, most importantly, whether or not this is in agreement with what was agreed upon in Paris. As this agreement is now in force, there is no hiding place left for governments or businesses: they will be publicly shamed for any stalling or evading.

Disappointing was, once more, the lack of financial support for poor countries. Few now deny the fact that the consequences of climate change will be harshest for precisely those countries which conributed the least to the problem. On the one hand, poor countries did not and do not consume much energy, evidently. On the other hand, many of the poorest countries are situated in regions where climate change is predicted to have it’s most severe effects, for instance central Afrika. This state of affairs was recognised in principle in the Paris Agreement but without financial backup this comes down to leaving those countries the choice between staying poor or employing the cheapest, that is the most eco-unfriendly, energy sources.
Let us hope that next year’s COP23, in Bonn, will bring more tangible results for those countries.

One more important point on which no agreement was reached was the matter of sanctions for those countries which do not live up to their obligations; for the time being, it will all be left to good manners. It wasn’t that much of disappointment, though: very few had realistically expected proposals for sanctions to make it.
Personally, I don’t set much store by sanctions in this case. It’s a bit like a mariage, I think: mariages were not more happy in times when adultery still carried legal sanctions and have not become less happy because such sanctions were removed. In the same vein, the Paris Agreement will only function when the signatories are fully convinced that cooperation is in their own interest. If that is not the case, sanctions can’t help, I think; at least not in this stage.
This necessary conviction can only come from rationally reviewing the scientific evidence on both the progress of climate change and the impact of the measures taken. Let is hope that all governements, or at least te most important ones, will continue the rational attitude as displayed in Paris a year ago.

Hans

Update 22/11/16

President-elect Donald Trump told The New York Times that he thinks there is “some connectivity” between human activity and climate change. This after many years of not just denying a link between climate change and human activities, but even declaring climate change itself ‘a hoax’. May we still harbour some hope that rational thought will prevail in the end?
How’s this for a chuckle, by the way: Trump’s company managing his private golf course applied for a licence to build a sea-wall around the golf course. As the main reason to build it, the application cites ‘climate change’ and the consequent rise in sea levels and severe storms.
(see: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-climate-change-golf-course-223436)