COP28 is happening right now in Dubai, so Evie and the Ecolution crew are here with a special episode of Ecolution.
As you may already know, COP stands for the Conference of the Parties and it's the UN's Climate Change Conference.
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The actual meeting is where countries from across the world come together to discuss and agree on ways to tackle the ongoing climate crisis. And this is the 28th time it’s being held.
197 countries, plus the EU as one entity, will attend COP. This year it’s taking place in Dubai in the UAE. It kicked off on the 1st December and will run until the 12th. And the event promises to be far reaching.
The impacts that COP could make, through either action or inaction, are huge. And so we couldn’t let It pass without discussion here on Ecolution.
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We gathered a really broad, and very well-informed group of young people, to take part in the conversation. You can see a small clip above!
Sarah, a representative from the Children and Young People's Assembly on Biodiversity Loss, is one of the young people chatting, and we will hear more from her soon.
And, as we’ve had many members of the Irish School’s Sustainabilty Network on Ecolution before, we had to include them here too. From the primary school part of the network we have Charlie from Clerihans NS in Tipperary. And from the secondary strand we have Rossa from Rockbrook Green School and Ella and Kelsey from Waterford.
Plus, we hear from climate activist Saoirse Exton who also happens to be the Youngest advisor to the UN Secretary General. She attended COP26 and brings her insight on the experience.
Together they discuss what successes previous COP events have achieved, what worries them about COP28 and how, in a perfect world we could build a better COP. One that acts fast and represents people equally. As well as offering young people a place at the table.
There will be a day devoted to the health impacts of the climate crisis. A deal on paying for the loss and damage inflicted on nations at the front line of the climate crisis seems to have been reached on day one. The connection between Nature and Climate are being made clearer at this COP event. And the opening address came from King Charles III.
In it he said: "I pray with all my heart that COP28 will be another critical turning point towards genuine transformational action at a time when, already, as scientists have been warning for so long, we are seeing alarming tipping points being reached.
"Despite all the attention, there is 30% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than there was back then, and almost 40% more methane.
"Some important progress has been made, but it worries me greatly that we remain so dreadfully far off track as the global stocktake report demonstrates so graphically."
And there are many potential issues. The USA is one of the top 3 polluters and yet President Biden isn’t attending, sending John Kerry as his envoy instead. There was disbelief among environmentalists, when it was announced that the president delegate was to be Sultan Al Jaber. A man who just happens to be the boss of one of the world's largest oil companies, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
More controversy followed. Just ahead of the opening to COP, news outlets reported that he and his staff had been using the access to world leaders in advance of the event to try and increase exports of oil.
And in a zoom discussion with former guest of the show and President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, the Sultan got himself into even murkier waters
During the online debate, Mrs Robinson told Sultan Al-Jaber the world is in "an absolute crisis that is hurting women more than anyone, women and children, the elderly, and those with disability and those most vulnerable."
The former President of Ireland said that crisis exists "because we have not yet committed to phasing out fossil fuel. That is the one decision that COP28 can take under your presidency".
"And in many ways, because you're head of the Abu Dhabi national oil company, you could actually take it with more credibility by saying 'I now recognise we have to phase out fossil fuel with just transition for the workers and their communities, and just transition into renewable, accessible, affordable and clean energy’.
The President of COP28 then said: "I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and a mature conversation. I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist."
He then insisted that there is "no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5" degrees.
RTÉ News have some great Climate Change explainers too from Saibh Downes - head over to RTÉ Learn to check them out!
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