COP27, Marinel Ubaldo Interview, and More
"We are all connected and whatever we do, it comes back to us. It is everybody's future. It is everybody's problem. We have to be all in this together."
COP27 begins today in Egypt
Some of you know I was at COP26 in Scotland last year and wrote about the experience on this platform.
If COPs don’t interest you, skim on down. But here are a few quick points on the conference, before I get to the highlight of this piece (an interview with my friend Marinel):
This year, the importance of the conference is even greater: COP26 pushed a number of key items to this year; climate impacts have been awful all around the world, increasing low-income countries’ calls for reparations; and several UN reports—two IPCC reports in February and April—and one just recently, all point to how the world is blowing past safe planetary thresholds, climate plans remain woefully insufficient, and strong efforts are needed if we are “to secure a liveable future for all.”
Of the most recent report, summarizing where the world is on climate heading into COP27, Inger Andersen, the executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said:
“This report tells us in cold scientific terms what nature has been telling us all year through deadly floods, storms and raging fires: we have to stop filling our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and stop doing it fast.
“We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over. Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster.
“Every fraction of a degree matters: to vulnerable communities, to ecosystems, and to every one of us.”
A potentially huge point on the agenda is Loss & Damage funding for Global South countries experiencing the impacts first and worst.
Justin Worland at TIME writes about how the moral case for climate reparations—as compelling as they are, including to me and no doubt many of you as readers—don’t speak to rich governments’ interests. Money, self-interest, and threat aversion often does. COP27, Worland writes, “offers an opportunity to embrace the reality that when it comes to climate, helping poorer countries helps everybody.” I have a lot of worries about what this means. But it could ultimately lead to a stronger outcome. We will see. (Credit to Debra Rienstra for lifting up this article.)
As for better news: beyond fear and self-interest, there has never been stronger economic rationale for acting on climate. A recent Oxford study estimates that “Decarbonizing the energy system by 2050 could save trillions.” So frequently, climate action is pitted against fiscal responsibility (the old environment vs. economy line drummed up to preserve fossil fuel interests). More and more, there are hard numbers to show that they are not antithetical. Dr. Katharine Hayhoe comments on this win-win scenario “a transition to nearly 100% clean energy by 2050 results in lower energy system costs than a fossil fuel system, while providing more energy to the global economy, and expanding energy access to more people around the world. This result is based purely on the economics of different energy technologies, even without accounting for the costs of climate damages and climate adaptation that would be avoided by such an energy transition.”
To add to the good news, the energy world is already changing rapidly. While it is maddeningly true that global emissions are still on track to increase by over 10% by 2030, when it is necessary to decrease emissions by 45% in that same period, the historically conservative International Energy Agency (IEA) has now estimated the world will hit peak global emissions from energy by 2025: “The global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing profound and long-lasting changes that have the potential to hasten the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy system.” This is too little and too slow given climate science, but experts have frequently underestimated how quick and cheap renewables can be deployed. This provides further support for the view (which I hold) that the transition from fossil energy is inevitable; the question is how quickly and justly it will take place.
COP27 is massively important. I am invested in a strong outcome. But I’ll admit, I haven't had the bandwidth to read up on the conference in-depth. I’ll be following the outcomes and learning what I can, but less intensely than last year, knowing that what I can actually do to help the situation is doing what I can do where I live.
For now, I want to share with you an interview I had with someone with way more experience.
We are all connected: an interview with Marinel Ubaldo
Marinel Sumook Ubaldo, 25, is a climate justice, gender equality, and human rights activist from the Philippines. In 2015, as a youth ambassador, she addressed the UN delegates who signed the Paris Agreement. A registered social worker who is currently pursuing a master’s degree in environmental management at Duke University, Marinel has founded or worked for a number of environmental organizations, including Living Laudato Si’ Philippines. She is an EarthOrg ambassador and part of UN Women’s 30 by 2030 Network.
I met Marinel last year at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland; we were there with the same program. Over dinner one evening I found out she was the same person I’d recently heard on Tina Muir and Knox Robinson’s Running Realized podcast. It’s a small world. And Marinel is an extraordinary person.
Marinel is at the COP27 UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt from Nov. 6-18, 2022. I recently had an opportunity to speak with her about climate justice, COP27, and how she approaches her advocacy work.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. (A version was originally published on the Do Justice blog.)
Marinel, you have a lot of experience with these UN climate conferences. You not only organized the first youth climate strike in the Philippines, you also addressed world leaders at COP21 in Paris. The Paris Agreement was a huge triumph of advocacy by small island states, who pressed world leaders to reach a stronger agreement. How do you see the Paris Agreement and the UN COP process influencing climate justice now?
As a climate activist, I have a lot of doubt about that, especially because we felt that we had a really good and historic outcome during COP21 in Paris. The Paris Agreement kind of shaped how we are addressing the climate crisis now. There's a lot of resources being put into climate negotiations and into these conferences.
But how are we making sure that the pledges from each COP are not just piling up, but are actually being put into action?
COPs are important for the world leaders to come together to address the issue of climate change and how they could move forward. That is also one way to really shake, push, or poke those in power that, “hey, you're not doing anything. This is already the 27th year, right? Maybe we should not just do talking, but also action.”
COPs are very, very important. But we’ve had the Paris Agreement for how many years? Since 2015. Like seven years now. Yet we're not even near the targets. We have increased our global temperature. So how are we making sure that we're actually reaching the targets of each COP? And how are we translating those to the communities?
I heard it said that the COP is one place that less powerful countries—countries that have been historically colonized—can hold the rich countries and historical colonizers to account; if we didn't have the COP, we'd probably have to invent it. You are going to COP27. What are you looking for there?
Loss and Damage is certainly my biggest priority because they have delayed that in COP26. But they said they will really put action on Loss and Damage by COP27. So that was a promise. And I am looking forward to how they would not just donate, but actually institutionalize funding for loss and damage. They have to pay up for the losses and damages that the developing countries have already suffered.
I mean, they could have done it like a decade ago, not waiting for many people to die before acting on it. But they did not. They still waited for more reasons to give funding for loss and damage. Up until now, those commitments, those donations, those pledges are yet to be seen. So I am looking forward to how Egypt would make sure that they will make a historic move of institutionalizing the funding for Loss and Damage. We need it now more than ever.
Sadly enough, there are places who have reached hard limit adaptation already. They cannot do anything about the climate crisis. What they could do is just to migrate to other places. And there will be more places who would reach the hard limit adaptation. Even the Philippines: I don't know if we are still part of the map in 2050. So that is so urgent.
I know it will not be easy, especially because during COP26 they were saying, they don't want to call it a payment because the first world countries don't want to acknowledge that they have a carbon debt.
[Besides Loss and Damage] we have received news that the Egyptian government is detaining a climate activist and political activists, so there will be very high security at COP27 because they are not that friendly to activists. So I wonder how they will actually…enable safe participation of youth during COP27.
On historic debt: you're from the Philippines. I’m from the US. The Philippines contributes like 0.4% of climate pollution; the US, historically a quarter of all climate pollution. And yet, the Philippines is one of the most affected, if not the most affected places. At COP last year you called upon those of us from Global North countries, historically high-polluting countries, to recognize that we share one atmosphere; that what we do doesn't just affect us, it affects all of us. What do you want people from wealthy countries to know and to do with that knowledge?
Climate change is not just being felt in developing countries like the Philippines. A lot of developed countries are already suffering from the effects of climate change.
And we have seen it. Hurricane Ian just ravaged Florida. Drought is happening even in first world countries. There was wildfire in Australia. The temperature was so hot in Europe. There was even a drought and there was flash flooding.
We are all connected and whatever we do, it comes back to us. We cannot just say, “oh, there are other climate activists. There are people who are actually doing the work to save the planet.” No, we cannot exclude ourselves. Because it should be all our work. It is everybody's future. It is everybody's problem. We have to be all in this together.
We all need to do extra work. Whatever we do to the planet, it comes back to us, because we are all connected. What is happening on the other side of the world could happen to us, and even if we say that we are not yet directly affected, our common commodities, our basic necessities are being threatened by the climate crisis. Why do we have wars now? Because people are fighting over a finite resource. And that is maybe the saddest part of being a young person is the thought that maybe we'll never be able to reach our dreams in this lifetime.
You became a climate leader at a young age. You shouldn't have to be a climate leader, but you are. What advice do you, as an experienced activist, have for those of us who know that we need to increase our commitments?
If people truly want to help, it is by working with your own government first. It is so easy to give money, whenever there are disasters, to developing countries, to all these victims. But what would really be helpful to those bearing the brunt of the climate crisis, is when you go talk with your leaders to make sure they are willing to help them transition into more climate resilience societies. Because as you said earlier, the Philippines is emitting a drop in the ocean. Yet we are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. A lot of countries, not just the Philippines, are bearing the brunt, even if they're not responsible for it.
My advice is always, research what you can do at your own level, talk with your leaders, write to your leaders, make letters, petitions, ordinances. So for me it is knowing how to lobby, how to work with your government, with your leaders before actually thinking of “how we can support you on the other side of the world?”
And if you have the luxury of options as to what companies to support, support local, those who are just starting up businesses, those who are more sustainable, those who actually give back to the community.
You’re living in the US as a student right now. There's an election here in a couple of weeks. What do you think the role of voting is?
Our right to suffrage is actually what makes us more powerful because we can elect people in office; we can also vote them down from office. We have the power as people, as a collective, to do that.
You have to practice your right to suffrage because that is one way that you could help the planet, if you will vote for someone who is an ally to the planet, who knows how to help people, who is not just thinking about himself or herself, but also what's best for her or his constituency.
Working with the government is one way to really make an impactful action because the government has the power, they have the money, and they have the resources to make change happen.
Aside from pushing them to do something by being on the streets, it is also very important that we lobby with them, we make that connection so that they will realize that by tackling the climate crisis, they are not just saving themselves, they're also saving the community and the people they are serving.
It is a win-win for everybody if we address the climate crisis locally and internationally.
In climate justice circles, it seems there's more emphasis now on taking care of ourselves and experiencing joy. Do you see that? How do you balance joy with dealing with the realities of climate and climate anxiety?
Of course we need to have joy in our lives. That makes us go.
And we have to realize that, at the end of the day, we go home to ourselves. You have to know your limits as a person.
I always say, know your pace. Do not feel that if you stop, you will be missing out. That is the thing now with this generation, because we feel we have to hustle, we have to do more, we have to make a lot of changes now because if we stop, if we rest, then we will be missing a lot. Which is not [the case]: we will not miss anything. We just have to make sure that we actually have the time for ourselves because who will protect the planet, if we can’t even protect ourselves now?
So for me, it is very important to know: what makes you happy? What brings you joy? I always ask my friends, what gives you joy today? What was your biggest realization today? What makes you feel good today? Because it keeps us going.
Anything else you would like people to know?
We don't need to be labeled as climate activists to do something. Just know who you are and what you are waking up for when you wake up in the morning.
What are the things that you look forward to? Because anything and everyone is being threatened by the climate crisis. And so if you love something, if you love someone, you would really make sure to fight for that person or that thing that you love. Right?
That is the same with the climate crisis. If we will not fight now, we will be losing a lot of people. We'll be losing the things that make us happy. The things that bring us joy. And we don't want that. We don't want to see our loved ones dying because of climate disasters. We don't want to see more wars. We don't want to see more conflict.
So we have to be all in this together. We have to fight for our common home. Collectively, whatever your religion is, whatever background you're coming from, whatever race you are, we have to be all at this together. Because the climate crisis doesn't say, “hey, I'll just be in the Philippines or in Africa.” So we have to keep fighting collectively. It is our responsibility, all of us, to tackle the climate crisis.
You can follow Marinel’s advocacy, at COP27 and beyond, via Instagram and Twitter.
And more
What we can do. If you didn’t see in the last newsletter, I’ve started a series trying to offer some guidance on the question “what can I do?” to take meaningful action on climate. I’ll be posting first on Instagram:
You can also see there first two posts in the series: ‘Identify Joys & Skills’ and ‘Vote + Engage Electeds’. And here is a running document of highlighted resources, in case you’re interested.
Project needs user feedback. In a past newsletter, I mentioned the importance of preparing for extreme weather. A recent colleague, Saraya Hamidi, is creating an amazing resource that makes disaster preparation easier; it’s called My Climate Plan. The project is surveying potential users. Consider taking the brief survey to help out?
Victory for the Amazon. Much has been made about Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's victory over Bolsonaro in the Brazilian election. And rightly so. According to analysis by Carbon Brief, this change of power could mean cutting Brazilian Amazon deforestation by 89%. Massive implications here.
Takeaways from a climate fellowship. Last month I completed the Climatebase Fellowship, an intensive program to provide greater knowledge, networks, and project experience to people who want to work on climate full-time. I put together a few takeaways in a short post on LinkedIn.
The Ministry for the Future. With friends online and in person this fall, I read and discussed Kim Stanley Robinson’s book The Ministry for the Future. Many have pointed to how the book creates an imagination for how the years between now and the 2050s may play out. Our reading groups talked about themes like: the role of spiritual awakening vs. Robinson's mostly materialist theory of change, the ethics of violence, how role for faith communities, how to economically incentivize regeneration, and what it looks like to locate ourselves and our vocations within this story.
For Robinson, the UN and COPs play a large role in how the international community will muddle through the decades ahead—more than I would have expected. In an interview, Robinson acknowledges the shortcomings of the COP while also noting how, in 2000, the idea of the 2015 Paris Agreement would have been seen as ridiculous and starry-eyed. He maintains an outlook where international diplomacy keeps the world working together rather than a warsome free-for-all.
To bring this back around: I can’t claim optimism about COP27. I see the slogan below from COP26—“WE CAN DO THIS, IF WE ACT NOW”—and see a scientifically accurate, true statement. And yet I scoff at the marketing boosterism, the UK host’s hypocrisy over the last year, and wonder about that royal ‘we’ and what is meant by ‘this.’ Leaving aside both optimism and easy easy cynicism, I still see something within the COP process that is more helpful, more motivating, but also more ambiguous, tenuous, and therefore psychologically challenging to hold onto: possibility.
Thank you for reading today.