It’s time for world leaders to COP on to our planet’s perils

IT has been a whirlwind two weeks at COP27 in Egypt.

And I go home with three things firmly planted in my mind.

Fossil fuel companies are snakes and it could be a long time, if ever, before they hand over any of their trillions to help those suffering as a result of their business plan.

Governments, who on the one hand have to secure energy sources for their people.

And on the other know they need to drive down carbon emissions, are working with the added hindrance of big oil frustrating any to curb them.

Few people, including Governments of the world, will ever truly take responsibility for what they’ve done because of the liability implications.

We know the world is half burning and half drowning.

The implications on what burning coal, oil, gas and turf have done to our planet is plain to see in the news, weather, online and social media.

At home it might be new buds on trees as the old ones fall in autumn, as Ireland’s Taoiseach pointed out.

It may be warmer summers and milder

winters. But for people in small island nations, as Mary Robinson quite rightly pointed out that ‘it’s extinction’.

For people in arid regions of Africa it is drought, failing crops, starvation and death. It’s mothers who can’t feed babies too weak to cry and have no choice but to watch them die.

It’s communities forced from homes and lands that can’t provide for them anymore and who face persecution where ever they go, because their neighbours haven’t got enough to go round.

In Bangladesh and Pakistan it’s flooding that has washed away the lives of millions. Scientists and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change couldn’t be more clear about what needs to be done about the climate crisis, which has already 21 million refugees.

Barbados PM Mia Mottley warned it could be as many as one billion by 2050.

Yet with almost 200 countries at the table in Sharm El Sheikh, negotiations on what should be done about it slither more slowly than a frigid atom cloud.

Countries don’t want to be told they can’t drill for oil which makes them huge fortunes any more.

Others are hanging on to their coal mines for dear life.

And gas folks aren’t giving up the ghost anytime soon, with their tendrils creeping across Africa in a bid to extract as much of ‘bridging fuel’ LNG as they can before the end of play.

It’s up to Governments to push for the change we so badly need in the world.

But what do we do if they keep failing us and pushing the hard decisions further into the future.

You can vote with your feet, become more active on the issue, start a blog or Tiktok about it.

You could stop eating as much meat, swap your car for a bike, take public transport, avoid flying as much as you can, holiday at home, shop local from nearby producers and reduce the amount of energy you use.

Now don’t get me wrong – this is not your fault we are in this mess.

We are living the lives set out before us – and are just a hell of a lot luckier than those who are dying because of the climate crisis.

I think we can squarely land this debacle at the feet of big oil and Governments who do their bidding.

It’s high time we broke free, stopped paying them subsidies and gave them the cold shoulder they deserve.

We know the world is half burning and half drowning

PIONEERING Mary Robinson addresses COP27