Heating up: A wildfire in British Columbia, Canada, in August. The Canadian Climate Institute says, thanks to climate change, Canada no longer suffers one localised disaster every few years but rather ‘several events stacked on top of each other in a single year’. — AFP
OVER the last couple of years inflation has caused a cost-of-living crisis across large parts of the world. Some fearmongerers have used the hardship this has caused to propagate rhetoric that climate change action is unaffordable and is against the interests of ordinary people. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas, are a major driver of the cost-of-living crisis, which is stretching billions of household budgets to breaking point. Prices have swung wildly, driven higher by uncertainty and conflict. In turn, this pushes up the costs of transport, food, electricity, and basic household necessities. In some heavily fossil fuel-dependent countries, household bills rose as much as US$1,000 (RM4,683) in 2022 due to fossil fuel energy costs.
Consumer costs will rise further and economic growth will slow as climate impacts become more intense, according to economic authorities such as the US Trea-sury, the Reserve Bank of India and the European Central Bank. High energy prices also shrink profit margins for businesses, hurt economic growth, and impede the right to energy across the world.
This comes as climate disasters are also getting worse in every country. This year will likely be the hottest in 125,000 years. More destructive storms, unpredictable rains and floods, heatwaves and droughts are already causing massive economic damage and affecting hundreds of millions of people across the world, costing them their lives and livelihoods.
The fossil fuel taps can’t be turned off overnight but there are a lot of opportunities for action not currently being taken. For example, in 2022, governments spent over US$7 trillion (RM32.8 trillion) in taxpayers’ money or borrowings on fossil fuel subsidies. Subsidies fail to protect the real incomes of the poorest households and divert money that are increasing developing country debt burdens, or could have been used to improve healthcare, build infrastructure – including renewable energy and grids – and expand programmes to alleviate poverty. Done responsibly, a phase-out of such subsidies would actually help the poorest and improve the economies of the countries now dependent on them.
This year, at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), we will be presenting a Global Stocktake on climate action up to now. It has indicated clearly that progress is too slow. But it also revealed that we have many tools to speed up climate action now, which will simultaneously build stronger economies. We have the knowledge and tools to accelerate this transition while ensuring it is fair and just and leaves no one behind.
Billions of people need their governments to pick up this toolbox and put it to work. That includes switching billions of dollars from investments in new fossil fuel production to renewable energy that will provide stable, reliable and lower-priced energy to propel economic growth.
There is cause for optimism if governments come to COP28 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, with a spirit of cooperation and a laser-focus on solutions.
At COP28 we can agree on tripling renewable energy capacity. We can double energy efficiency. We can show we are doubling finance to help countries adapt to climate impacts.
We can make the climate loss and damage fund a reality that helps deliver climate justice. And we can deliver on old promises to finance the transition.
One moment, one meeting, won’t change everything. But we can capture the future in the directions that we set this year, and provide the plan for how national commitments can deliver in 2025.
I refuse to let fearmongering pull a hood over my eyes, and you shouldn’t either.
SIMON STIELL
Executive secretary
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
