In an article published on the World Economic Forum’s website on 28th Jan two years ago, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change secretariat (UNFCCC) Christiana Figueres outlined four conclusions on climate from the 2015 edition of the WEF. It was the final run-up to the 21st Conference Of Parties on climate change (ie ‘COP21’) which was to be held in Paris in early December of that year. Observers and analysts were eager to find positive signs that international action was going to be taken against climate change, and they were looking at international fora and subsequent declarations to pick up any new information.
Mrs Figueres’ four points were made in that context. First, she argued, renewable energies had become mature, citing “solar and wind [as] no longer marginal”. Technological progress combined with low oil prices had to favour this. Secondly, the shifts in the oil market were making it less profitable, and oil was now a lot more expensive to produce. Thirdly, companies were transforming and “redirecting themselves toward low-carbon or zero-carbon operations in the understanding that the transformation is […] inevitable.” Last but not least, she argued there was what she dubbed a ‘gateway effect’, which she explained as the necessity to act on climate change immediately because time was running out.
At the same time two years ago, and international businessman Christophe Mazurier commented on the run-up to the COP21 in an article published by French economic newspaper Les Echos. According to him, the Brisbane G20 had allowed the US and China to reconcile on the issue of climate change, albeit politely and somewhat distantly. The context, he said, was generally favourable and hopes were high that neither one nor the other power would hamper the Paris negotiations. A month ago, Mr Mazurier offered his opinion on the upcoming 2017 edition of the WEF in an article published on French newspaper Le Figaro’s website, and quite strikingly, most of his comments were about how China and the US’ inability to cooperate as of now could strike a bad blow on the world’s common interests – on subjects such as trade, better wealth redistribution, and of course, climate change. Mr Mazurier also underlined the contradiction between Xi Jinping’s discourse on pushing for Chinese economic development as strongly as possible and his seeming intention of upholding the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
Comparing both of Mr Mazurier’s interventions gives a striking image of how fast what seems like a consensus may fall short of action, and of how little has in fact really been done to jump hastily through the ‘gateway’ Mrs Figueres talked about two years ago. Sadly, it seems that the four key points that she had underlined in January 2015 as being favourable economic trends cannot help uphold the US and China’s commitments on environmental action. The political context and lack of political will are blocking the process. As Mr Mazurier rightly underlined in his article a month ago, if the world’s most important economic powers do not do what they said they would, they have to be called out for their hypocrisy – and reminded that they are accountable.