Thursday was the deadline for the Conference of Parties Resolution, and although the draft resolution is a long one, coming in at 20 pages, it appears as if it was cooked up just to meet the deadline. Though it is much longer than last year’s resolution, which was only seven pages, it appears even more confusing and vague.
In trying to include text on everything from cutting greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation, in the UN jargon) to human rights, technology and food, the resolution ends up saying nothing concrete about anything. It fails to resolve some of the more contentious issues around climate change and does not appear to say anything new.
For example, the resolution shies away from making any decisions, consistently using the term “placeholder for relevant outcomes from ongoing negotiations” as a pretext to not have to come to any conclusive commitments. This was the deadline, yet the draft resolution keeps putting off making decisions on the excuse of “ongoing negotiations”. On major financial actions, such as granting funding, the draft resolution only uses non-committal language; for example, on the issue of food security, which has become an urgent problem in climate-change-devastated countries due to floods ruining crops, the resolution merely says, “acknowledging the global food crises that exacerbate the impacts of climate change, in particular in developing countries”.
The link between food crises and climate change has already been acknowledged—and acknowledgement will not do much when funds are required to counter food insecurity and shortages. Even after blatantly seeing the devastation caused by climate change events in 2022, there is still debate and disagreement by countries over the 1.5-degree Celsius goal envisioned by the UN and all credible science organisations—particularly over arguments over language around this issue.
If this is the draft of the resolution adopted, it will only solidify the perception that the Conference of Parties is just a dialogue with no action. There needs to be a more consolidated push by developing countries to make developed states finance the move towards reducing emissions and making countries more climate resilient. We cannot keep falling into the same traps every year.