The climate summit on the edge of the Red Sea and under the shadow of Mount Sinai

In 1972 the first United Nations Earth Summit was held in Stockholm. Some of us still remember the 26 principles that were agreed upon in it, such as "Man has a fundamental right to freedom, equality and the enjoyment of adequate living conditions in an environment of such quality that allows him to lead a dignified life and enjoy well-being and has the solemn obligation to protect and improve the environment. for present and future generations”.  

Unfortunately, 50 years later we see that, if this commitment had been carried out, perhaps we would not be debating ourselves in the face of the serious climatic situation that we are suffering, on the dangerous frontier of a rise in temperature so as not to exceed 1,5 degrees. 

The 27th edition of this Summit was recently held in Egypt, and without losing hope, it will be necessary to consider that the expectations that had been placed in it have not been fulfilled.

Today, again, Eduardo Salazar Ortuño, lawyer, doctor of Law, collaborates in this blog, who tells us about his impressions as an assistant to the aforementioned COP 27.

                                                                     Jose Manuel Marraco Espinos. lawyer

THE CLIMATE SUMMIT ON THE EDGE OF THE RED SEA AND UNDER THE SHADOW OF MOUNT SINAI

Comments to COP27

Dr. Eduardo Salazar Ortuño (ECOJUSTICE)

I start these lines about COP27 on the plane that returns me to Europe with a mind full of pleasant professional experiences and with almost empty hands in terms of international commitments of the states that represent us. In one of the most beautiful and rare places in the world, Sharm el Sheick, more than forty thousand people have come together and have shared a bus and taxi to try to row in the same direction. But the above, despite expectations - which are always there - has not been possible.

Advances in public climate policies continue to be timid and short-term, when what climate activists claim is geopolitical leadership to gradually disengage from the energy sources that produce the increase in the greenhouse effect. There is nothing. And it is everything given the levels that we are reaching. What good are the exhaustive and clear scientific reports of the IPCC – asks the citizens present at COP27 – if when the Summits and Meetings of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention arrive, the steps are baby steps.

Like all practicing lawyers, it has been the comments from the corridors of the COP that have given me the most hope and fun, despite everything. In immense and icy industrial warehouses in the middle of the Sinai desert, full of pavilions of multinationals, nationals and NGOs (in that order) coffee and pastries were served until the negotiation got stuck due to the unambitious proposal of the presidency (Egypt). and the iron position of the European Union to achieve some progress. On Friday of the second week, at about 8 PM, the negotiators and the Secretariat's technicians were looking for coffee or Coca-Cola Zero (funder of the macro event) like possessed. The time of the negotiations, after two weeks of fair and "greenwashing” lasted until Sunday 22/11 at 3AM.

In relation to the results I recommend the didactic analysis of the recent COP27 carried out in TheConversation by Fernando Valladares, member of the CSIC. I join in the hope that your analysis conveys despite having attended a disappointing COP27.

In this my first Climate COP – the Meetings of the Conference of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention mobilize much less people – I have found in the corridors, in the pavilions, in the canteens and improvised gourmet restaurants, in the taxis, and in the free buses to very interesting people who also continue to hope for a better world, more respectful of the ecosystem that welcomes us. From the rage of the young, who are not kidding, to the sympathy and empathy of the most veteran activists and lawyers, to the leadership of the most climate progressive countries, one is left with the impression that, at the end of all , we are the people who build or allow the current geopolitics and those who face the monstrous capitalism, green or not.

The stomach of the legal profession is used to the worst messes and sharing with jurists the progress of disappointment as the hours went by has been a tremendous exercise in solidarity. Each one from their place of origin, all dreaming the same thing and speaking the same language (read the same ideals for change), climate advocacy has taken positions in negotiations, international panels, formal and informal meetings. Among the most important disappointments has been the maintenance of the least sustainable energy industries (oil, coal, nuclear), the lack of conviction for the defense of human rights in relation to the right to a healthy environment and the obsession with atacar the symptoms of climate change through technology and transfer of funds for mitigation, without tracing a clear path to the necessary ecological transition that loads the inks in adaptation.

Among the good news has been, on the other hand, the endowment of a procedure for the Compliance Committee, which is about to be released, and on the other hand, the interest that has aroused among jurists and activists - especially from native peoples - the movement of the Rights of Nature, which advocates a new ecocentric approach to ecological law. As bearer of Law 19/2022, which grants legal personality to the Mar Menor and its basin, I have felt the emotion of those present in the Panels organized with Professor Teresa Vicente, the President of the IUCN Legal Commission - Christina Voigt - , the indigenous leaders of Ecuador and the young lawyer Eduardo Mossqueda, a Mexican fellow member of ELAW.

If the Framework Convention has been in force for more than thirty years and we continue to wait for its objectives to be met or to plan to obtain them with a date, there is something holding back this demand for change, something that is not expressed in writing and that is What this summit smells like: resistance to an ecological transition on the part of world powers and disregard for countries that see their way of life endangered at the expense of the unbridled consumption of resources in other states.

Many of us are thinking that the current Environmental Law, when it is complied with, is reduced to stopping the regression of the public powers and celebrating the birthdays of the norms.

From a tacky oasis like Sharm, which has also reminded me of what could have been Cope's Marina on the Mediterranean coast, watched from afar by the Sacred Mount of Sinai, accompanied by representatives of the Vatican, the legal profession has been present, helping with the more than 300 detained activists, presenting our strategic cases to other colleagues and disseminating the legislative success of the Mar Menor to be replicated in other parts of the planet.

I have come to represent the Pachamama Alliance as a lawyer at the Climate Summit in Egypt, a network that seeks an ecocentric turn in environmental policies and legislation, but I have proudly stayed in the Spanish Pavilion, where there have been many activities and, above all, everything, provisioning for the stupendous negotiators, including the Vice-president, Teresa Ribera.

Walking the frenetic COP27 venue without a gown, but with clear demands towards the almighty has forced me to take a mental break, from which I am writing these lines, which I intend to be hopeful for this new generation of jurists who have to deal with this planet. full of mediocre ancestors.