Regarding the COP16 that took place in Cali, what are the COPs really for when it comes to talking about climate change and the challenges in this area?
The COP that ended last week in Cali was a spectacle that brought together all the possible narratives, contradictions and tensions within the environmental world, as one would imagine a global negotiation on what countries can agree on to see how they manage their biodiversity.
There are three international conferences that seek to negotiate treaties that support the solution of environmental problems: climate change, desertification and biodiversity; the one we experienced in Cali was the one on biodiversity, which takes place every two years. The place where we are today must also be interpreted as the result of a number of historical events: (a) the nation-state as the dominant mechanism of identity and governance of peoples; (b) self-determination and sovereignty of the nation-state as an imperative principle of multilateral governance; (c) capitalism as the prevailing economic system where the profit motive creates incentives to degrade the planet; (d) an overflowing globalization where identifying who are those who consume and who are those who produce is becoming increasingly difficult and a long list of etceteras....
But what is the real use of POPs to transform the world towards regeneration? I would believe that the greatest success of these conferences, which in Cali was a success, is to create momentum in society about how important it is to change the productive and cultural systems towards regeneration. More than 700 thousand people were there interacting with the COP in Cali. This COP managed to move conversations around the environment, conversations that often seem very technical but in this case did manage to involve the general population. Perhaps the most important task we environmentalists have is to involve more and more people in the cause, so in that sense I think it was a success.
This is also the space where alliances and connections can be created between different social movements around the world that are advocating for similar causes. That environmental leaders can create global networks is of vital importance to leverage the environmental movement to the dimensions that the challenges we are facing require. It is also a space where voices that do not every day have the opportunity and connections they require to safeguard their territories can have it. Although it must also be recognized that the COPs are still spaces where power games are seen and where many discourses are instrumentalized to maintain unequal and unjust structures.
Now, in reference to the results of the negotiations, I believe that we are infinitely far from the targets (especially in terms of financing) that are being set. Biodiversity funding from northern to southern countries is supposed to reach $20 trillion by 2025 and we are extremely far from that figure. There was no consensus on financing instruments and mechanisms. For all of us who are aware of the risks facing us in the triple crisis (climate change-biodiversity-pollution), it is absolutely clear that the consensus that has been reached so far is absolutely insufficient.
But it is also true that it is through the articulation of the citizenry that governments and their representatives can end up making the changes that are demanded of them. We must continue to demand, but at the same time be highly suspicious of this process; it will be the communities themselves who will define their own destiny throughout the world.
There are many dots in the results of these negotiations, but what worries me most is that the discussions still revolve too much around environmental protection through regulatory instruments in the field and in conservation and restoration activities in specific territories, but not around the imperative need to reduce the consumerist pace of life in contemporary societies. If we do not address this problem, the problems will continue to accumulate and it seems that in the multilateral conversations there is no intention to see regulatory mechanisms to resolve this.
