COP29 and the Episcopal Delegation

Understand Physical Realities
Accept and Adapt
Live within Gaia

On Tuesday of this week the Episcopal delegation to COP29 organized a Zoom call to tell us about the conference that was held in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Episcopal team consisted of 17 delegates ― three of whom attended in person.

It was great to hear from the team, and also to link faces to names. It was also great to see such a commitment from our church.

Treating the Symptoms, Not the Disease

My overall impression of COP29 is that the leaders were pursuing the wrong agenda. The focus seemed to be on payments from the more prosperous nations to those that are still ‘developing’ (there’s a loaded word). The justification for this strategy is that climate change has been mostly caused by the developed nations, but it is the less developed parts of the world that are suffering the most dire consequences. In particular, some low-lying island nations face imminent destruction.

Giving out money in this way is a band aid ― it treats the symptoms rather than the causes of the problems. The agenda should, in my opinion, have focused more on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ― for the following reasons.

• Climate change affects us all: rich and poor alike. The wealthy nations may have more of a buffer in terms of resources and infrastructure, but ― as we saw with Hurricane Helene ― nowhere can escape the consequences of the changes that are becoming ever more serious and frequent.

• The wealthy nations have their own economic challenges. It will be increasingly difficult for politicians to justify giving money to other nations. ‘Charity begins at home’ people will say.

• There is a tendency to treat the large oil companies (including those in Azerbaijan) as adversaries. In my view, this is a mistake. These companies know that the world is changing and that they need to come up with new business strategies. (See the post A Truly Extraordinary ExxonMobil Report.) The church could and should work with these companies, rather than treating them as a foe.

Local Survey

As COP29 was progressing I conducted a very informal survey of the members of my church. I asked them a simple question, “Do you know what COP29 is?” The response was uniform ― no one, as in no one, knew anything about it. The nearest I got to a better reply was, “I seem to have heard of that”.