Climate diplomacy is failing — but we need it to survive

This column is an opinion by Felix von Geyer, a freelance sustainability journalist based in Montreal. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

Einstein's often (mis)quoted statement: "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them," and his idea of quantum insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results," lend well to directing us to a new approach in addressing the global climate crisis on the back of the IPCC's latest synthesis report.

Despite once-a-decade diplomatic breakthroughs since 1995, the diplomatic process of the annual United Nations Framework Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) ultimately failed to prevent global greenhouse gas emissions from reaching historic recorded highs in 2019; 54 per cent over 1990 levels.

IPCC reports take six to seven years to compile. Already they lag the latest climate science by the time member states agree to their findings. By the time their governments pledge (but seldom honour) their emissions reductions, the outdated science is lagged even more.

• We are heading toward IPCC's 1.5 C threshold of warming, but all is not lost

Today, we have only eight-and-a-half years at current emissions levels — a total of 500 gigatonnes — before humanity half-likely crashes through the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming barrier, while recent government pledges spiral along a 3.5 degrees trajectory by 2100.

To keep global warming to 1.5 degrees C or "well below 2 degrees" has been the world's persistent diplomatic target over a decade of quarterly governmental meetings and annual United Nations Climate Change Conference showdowns.

Keeping the process alive

Unfortunately, diplomatic success is less about climate effectiveness than keeping the process alive, kicking the proverbial climate negotiations from COP to COP, hoping for consensus.

Usually UNFCCC COP conferences grind to a standstill. Governments accusingly point at each other, arguing between historical and future responsibilities for climate change; technology transfer and how to finance developing countries' adaptation; or China's sovereignty concerns over measurement, reporting and verification of their emissions.

Diplomatic language has failed; yet that same diplomatic process is still required, and the UN remains the only framework suited to the task.

Here's the rub. Solving the climate problem has always been easy, but the current level of thinking, where governments make pledges to reduce their national emissions, must be jettisoned in favour of a truly global approach to address a truly global problem.

Only a scientific global ceiling or cap on the amount of carbon emissions per unit of fuel and energy as it reaches the market will achieve this. 

Such a cap would send a vital signal, business certainty and clarity to the world's fuel and energy providers and their investors to reduce the carbon content of energy over the next decade.

The cap needs to start with a 40 per cent reduction of CO2 per unit of energy by 2025, increasing by five per cent per year to achieve net-zero emissions between 2035-2040.

Facing strict choices

To reduce carbon exposure, fuel and energy providers would face strict choices: invest either in lower carbon fuels and renewable energy or pay to offset emissions. They can either buy carbon credits from companies managing to reduce their carbon emissions, or purchase carbon offsets created by reducing carbon emissions elsewhere in society.

A net zero emissions economy is achievable by creating carbon offsets through a myriad of sources, such as building green or low impact infrastructure that avoid future emissions, including the use of low to zero emissions concrete and cement. Another potential for carbon offsets is the major global investment required to bolster the world's electricity grids to handle distribution of increased renewable energy.

Improved industrial processes; reducing methane emissions from landfill waste, not to mention agriculture, forestry and land use (AFOLU) — that currently account for a fifth of global emissions — via existing mechanisms such as REDD+ are further areas for creating real offsets capable of reducing real emissions.

As we move toward COP28 later this year in the United Arab Emirates, the conference president will likely be the UAE's industry minister, who also happens to be the managing director and CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, making any climatically-effective outcome through the approaches we've become used to very doubtful. It is just as Einstein said about quantum insanity. 

But diplomacy — and the UN — still holds the key to climate success.

Do you have a strong opinion that could add insight, illuminate an issue in the news, or change how people think about an issue? We want to hear from you. Here's how to pitch to us.