My legal background, the reason for my interest in international law and the interpretation of treaties etc., is directly related to my interest in climate issues. Although I didn’t practice law, that interest has persisted: as well as studying climate issues going back to the 1950s, I’ve followed UN climate negotiations in detail since 2007. My conclusion is simple: if global greenhouse gas emissions are to be cut substantially – as we are told is necessary if humanity is to avoid potential catastrophe – the overriding issue, far more important than any domestic concern, is whether or not the governments of major non-Western economies are willing to act accordingly. Yet they’ve shown scant in interest in so doing.

I set out the evidence and reasons for this in an essay published in 2020. Nothing that’s happened since 2020 changes my conclusion. The ‘Dubai Stocktake’ agreed at COP28 last year for example if anything reinforced it. Look at the opening paragraph of item 28 stating that Parties’ ‘global efforts’ should take ‘into account the Paris Agreement and their different national circumstances’. Then note the specific word-for-word incorporation of the Paris Agreement’s Article 4.4 in item 38, unambiguously confirming developing countries’ exemption from any emission reduction obligation. That’s a perfect example of what always happens at these conferences: words are inserted in the concluding communiques or agreements letting developing countries off the hook.

So what’s going to happen at COP29?

Well, there’ll certainly be lot of argument about how ‘rich countries’ must pay developing countries for ‘loss and damage’. But of course that’s not what matters: from the outset the whole point of these COP conferences is supposed to be the realisation of global agreement to reduce emissions. But such reduction would require major non-Western countries to completely reverse their energy policies. And after 30 years of refusal to do so, they’re obviously not going to do that now – not at COP29 nor I believe at further such conferences. It really is about time Western governments got used to it.

Robin Guenier – June 2024