COP27: Governments must give due attention to climate change

That the dangers of climate change are very real cannot be overestimated, yet the governments are failing to show the due seriousness to cut greenhouse gas emissions for bringing the planet on track for an average 2.8 degrees Celsius temperature rise this century. No visible progress has been achieved in this regard and the United Nations describes this progress ‘woefully inadequate’ in its recent report.
Against this backdrop, representatives from countries are going to meet in Egypt from November 6-18 at the COP27 climate talks in Egypt. This time governments are supposed to agree on pledges to limit warming to below 2C above pre-industrial levels and ideally to 1.5C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Decades have passed since mankind first noticed the dreadful increase in global temperature causing the glacier and sea ice to melt down. According to an estimate, 95% of the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic is already gone.
The rising sea level is putting countries like Bangladesh at a greater risk to go under water. In summer, not only in countries of Asia but in colder countries of Europe, life is becoming increasingly unbearable. The WHO reported that over 1,700 people were killed in Portugal and Spain alone by the ferocious heat wave in Europe last year and underscored the need for urgent action to effectively face climate change.
If the rich countries of Europe now struggle to cope with the rise in temperature, the difficulties facing the poorer countries of Asia are only imaginable. Due to climate change life is at stake everywhere on the planet, but the seriousness of the danger is only in the pages of the book of environmental experts, not at the table of policy makers of governments around the world. The world was greatly surprised when the former US president Donald Trump withdrew his country’s commitment from the Paris Agreement.
The World Meteorological Organisation in a report Wednesday said that the greenhouse gas concentrations climbed at above average rates to new records last year. The report further pointed out that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, the all three greenhouse gases, are now at their new record levels far beyond the increase over the last decade.
The twenty-seventh United Nations’ Conference of Parties (COP27) is going to be hosted in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt after a few days at a critical time when countries are reeling under global pandemic, high energy prices, the war in Ukraine, and major disruptions to the food supply. It is expected that nations will not be preoccupied by these problems alone and will give greater attention to climate change, the long term impact of which will make the planet uninhabitable.