Saving planet in our hands

DR GABRIELLE JAMELA HOSEIN

WHILE WE weather rain and wonder at the daily threat of flooding, the COP27 meeting is taking place in Egypt and feels very far away.

COP means Conference of the Parties and refers to countries that signed up to the 1992 UN climate agreement. At that time, 154 nations signed the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, which committed governments to stop catastrophic human impact on our atmosphere. This is the 27th meeting about global warming, which was long predicted.

That was 30 years ago. Lobbied by the fossil fuel industry, governments dragged their feet, and today the effects can be felt everywhere, whether in drought, flooding or heat waves.

We know the oil companies calculatedly crushed the science and social movements around climate change, through lies, denial and campaigns to spread doubt. Politicians were bribed, all in the name of greed.

As Exxon enters Guyana like a conquistador, there’s a global movement to prosecute Big Oil for crimes against humanity because they knew and they didn’t care. They raked in billions, their CEOs became millionaires, and now it’s time they pay. Governments, that are in bed with these companies, won’t agree, but this is a movement of ordinary people around the world that’s long overdue.

What you should know is that the poorest, most discriminated, most disadvantaged and youngest will suffer most from the impacts being discussed at COP27, so this is a bread-and-butter issue. Gone are the days when concern about the environment could be stereotyped as a middle-class concern.

The big issues are getting the big polluters – the US, India, Brazil, Indonesia and China, for example – to agree to reduce emissions and use of coal, and stop deforestation by 2030.

However, this year, major debate is on what is being called “loss and damage finance.” This is money that comes from Europe and the US, for example, to help countries recover from floods, hurricanes and other effects of climate change, not just to prepare for it.

Think of every household in TT that has experienced unprecedented flooding, and what that costs families and the State. Multiply it by Pakistan, St Lucia, Belize, Philippines, and more. Think of how the GDP (gross domestic product or the market value of an economy) of Grenada, Dominica, Barbuda and The Bahamas were devastated overnight by hurricanes. This is money to help recovery, and it’s needed everywhere. Who has felt it, knows.

Fertile land becomes submerged in hours, crops are lost, mosquitoes breed, cholera threatens and food becomes more expensive, leading to greater hunger. Note this well as we wring our hands about crime. Gangs thrive in climate chaos when there’s greater unemployment, hunger, insecurity and desperation.

Alternatively, we are facing drought in the dry season, which also raises the price of garden produce. In East Africa it has become catastrophic, with children experiencing starvation by the millions. Once, these problems felt like they occurred in other places, not here. Now, we know that it’s just a matter of time, extent and impact.

This global crisis is forcing us to recognise that we are one people on one planet, unable to see what’s happening far away as disconnected from the muddy water rising over streets or the money that can’t stretch to buy what it used to.

It is also making us realise how political parties that divide us are doing direct harm, for they perpetrate distraction when we need to be united in our fight against their stalling and their lip service.

The next government should be elected on how it is going to carry the country through the climate crisis at a time when oil and gas dependence is under attack, when food insecurity sits at our dinner table, and when men in suits are finally acknowledging that climate chaos could be irreversible.

Mia Mottley, our Caribbean woman at large, is showing us that we don’t have to be little on the world stage. She’s facing down Big Oil and the World Bank, debt payments and loan interest rates. She’s footing it onto every platform demanding access to finance and technology to make immediate change.

If, by contrast, you are heading toward describing this as the end of times which only prayer can help, stop. There’s prayer, but as long as there is life on the planet, and not just ours, more important is our collective power to demand moral responsibility and political action. COP27 reminds that we can and must accelerate necessary momentum.

Diary of a mothering worker

Entry 482

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