Cop29, the latest United Nations Climate Change Conference, has limped to its inevitably acrimonious conclusion as arguments over money boiled over.
Essentially, wealthier developed nations baulk at paying the sums of money their poorer counterparts argue are essential to meet the deadly toll of rising temperatures.
A draft agreement yesterday spoke of how all nations - not just the richest - would aim to “mobilise $250 billion per year by 2035″. This is significantly short of the annual $400bn that it would take to meet the commitments governments around the world signed up to in the Paris Agreement, negotiated at Cop21 in 2015.
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Representatives from African nations, so vulnerable to climate change, were furious at the proposal, explaining that “$250bn will lead to unacceptable loss of life in Africa and around the world, and imperils the future of our world”.
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Panama’s negotiator was even angrier; $250bn a year was “a spit on the face of vulnerable nations like mine. They offer crumbs while we bear the dead.”
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If we are honest with ourselves, most of us simply don’t see climate change and environmental stewardship in the same life-and-death terms as our friends in Africa and elsewhere. There is a jarring disconnect between how a catastrophe that is already reshaping swathes of our planet - literally, as well as politically, economically and culturally - is largely given sympathetic lip service.
Until our politicians and civil servants can sort out prosecuting farmers and others for polluting our rivers and loughs, there is little point in listening to them pontificate about climate change
Perhaps because the amounts involved are so colossal, so beyond any normal frame of reference, it is tempting to push these discussions towards the bottom of our personal to do lists. When we are worrying about feeding the family, putting fuel in the car or heating our homes, it is hard to get exercised about something that will soak up hundreds of billions on another continent.
And yet we’ve had more than enough warning signs that we can’t ignore our impact on the environment. Just over 12 months ago, hundreds of homes and businesses in Newry, Portadown, Newcastle and Downpatrick flooded following intense rain. As our coverage elsewhere today explains, Ireland’s seabirds are under threat. Lough Neagh’s plight is well documented.
It is therefore bizarre that no-one is to be prosecuted after farm slurry killed thousands of fish in Co Antrim. The north’s environmental oversight is broken, says Crumlin and District Angling Association, with polluters able to act with “impunity”.
It is a scandal that there is little to no penalty for choking our natural environment. Until our politicians and civil servants can sort out prosecuting farmers and others for polluting our rivers and loughs, there is little point in listening to them pontificate about climate change. Addressing a global issue must begin at home.
