My contribution to a panel at the Rio Climate Action Week

I had the pleasure of working with Maurice Strong and Michael Strauss on the 2012 book Only One Earth The Long Road via Rio+20 to Sustainable Development

At the launch of the Only One Earth book 2012

2015 – ten years ago, we had one of the most significant positive years for sustainable development with the agreement on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals, and of course, the Paris Climate Agreement.

Both are based on the huge work that Maurice Strong did in his life. Raising the issue of climate change in the 1972 Stockholm Environment Conference and with other members of the Brundtland Commission, giving the vision which underpinned the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, which he was the Secretary General of.

Maurice Strong saw the limitations of the intergovernmental process. The nine chapters of Agenda 21 gave rights and responsibilities to key stakeholders, and to underpin this, he envisioned the Earth Charter as a real ethical basis for our life on earth and one of the unfinished businesses of the 92 Earth Summit.

He really wanted to ensure this would be put together through a broad, multi-stakeholder and multicultural process of consultation and drafting. COP30 will build on this with the Global Ethical Stocktake initiative.

Commenting on a previous question, what could we have done differently in 1992? I think we could have, in the framework convention, had the key sectors identified in a way that could have advanced the early adoption of sector targets. As far back as the late 1990s

So what is happening in the world, and what does the international community need right now to take bold steps forward in addressing the climate crisis?

We are in one of the most politically unstable periods since the end of the Cold War, and this has, in a large part, been created by the largest superpower, which is pursuing policies that will ensure we will not be able to keep global temperature under 1.5 °C. We can already see the results of not addressing the causes of climate change early enough or bold enough.

Current state of the global climate crisis

1.    Temperature increases and record-breaking heat

·    Global temperatures are trending dangerously upward. 2024 was the warmest year since 1850. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) predicts a 70% chance that the average warming for 2025–2029 will exceed 1.5°C.

2.    Through extreme weather and environmental impacts

·       The extreme weather is increasing in frequency and intensity, including rising sea levels, more frequent and intense extreme weather events like heatwaves and droughts, and impacts on ecosystems and human health, including species loss and increased disease risks.

3.    There is insufficient progress on emissions

·   This set of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—national climate action plans—is clearly not ambitious enough collectively to meet global targets.

·       With the US promoting drill baby drill policies, the emissions from fossil fuels will remain a primary driver. Investment in new fossil fuels must stop. 

So what does the international community need right now

Strengthen climate commitments (NDCs)

• We need Nations to be bolder as they update their NDCs and more aggressive. We need shorter-term targets that align with the 1.5°C limit.
• COP30 needs to outline a clear path for a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels.
• 2028 will be the next Global Stocktake and the commitments must go beyond mitigation to strengthen climate resilience, especially for vulnerable nations. 

To do all of this, we need to mobilize climate finance

• Overseas Development Aid will fall this year, and that money has gone to fund defence as the US is now not a reliable partner. Developed nations must find a way to fulfil the $300 billion a year by 2030 they need not to cut but to scale up their financial commitments to help developing countries transition to clean energy and adapt to climate impacts.
• Developed nations also agreed to secure efforts to mobilize a total of $1.3 trillion per year from public and private sources by 2035

Accelerate the clean energy transition

• If the US has opted out of policies to accelerate the deployment of clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar, then the EU and BASIC group of countries should work together.  We will need this as we see the expansion of data centers and the need to help developing countries tranistions.

We need to enhance international cooperation and support multilateralism

• This includes rebuilding trust, particularly among major emitters, and counter climate denialism and obstructionism from powerful entities.
• COP30 will be crucial for fostering renewed global commitment and collective action.
• Climate action needs whole-of-society approaches, ensuring, through the Action Agenda, that we all work to advance solutions. The move towards using the Blue Zone as an accelerator for implementation by Brazil should be copied by further COPs.  

As we approach COP30, I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther King

“Over the bleached bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late.”

Let it not be Too Late