THE ISSUE AND SUBJECT MATTER OF A COP IS STRICTLY CLIMATE ACTION. TO FORMULATE AND TO IMPLEMENT A CLIMATE ACTION PLAN ON A GLOBAL SCALE IN THE IMAGE OF THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL – THE SO CALLED “MONTREAL PROTOCOL FOR THE CLIMATE. (MPFC). THE OTHER RELEVANT ISSUE HERE IS THAT THE REASON WE NEED THE GLASGOW COP26 IN THE YEAR 2021 IS THAT THE 25 PREVIOUS COPS HELD SINCE 1995 HAVE ALL FAILED. EVEN THE SO CALLED “PARIS AGREEMENT” THAT HAD BEEN PRESENTED TO US AS A SUCCESS IS NOW REVEALED TO BE A FAILURE SIMPLY BECAUSE THE NEED FOR COP26 REVEALS THE UGLY TRUTH THAT ALL THE PREVIOUS COPS HAVE FAILED. AND INDEED THEY HAVE AS WE EXPLAIN BELOW.

IT HAS BEEN MORE THAN A QUARTER OF A CENTURY SINCE THE UN HELD THE FIRST CONFERENCE OF PARTIES TO THE UNFCCC THAT WAS ADVERTISED AS THE CONFERENCE THAT WOULD YIELD A GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION CONTRACT AS IN THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL DESCRIBED AS THE {MONTREAL PROTOCOL FOR THE CLIMATE} OR MPFC, BUT THE CONFERENCE OF PARTIES {OR “COP”} FAILED TO REACH A CLIMATE ACTION AGREEMENT. THIS SET THE UNITED NATIONS ON A COMICAL JOURNEY OF MORE THAN TWO DECADES OF FAILED COP MEETINGS DESCRIBED IN A RELATED POST: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/06/05/the-paris-agreement/ AND PRESENTED BELOW.

HERE WE PRESENT THIS COMICAL HISTORY OF COPS FROM THE RELATED POST LINKED ABOVE.

UNFCCC: For a global climate action agreement signed by all nations, the UN put together a global agreement signed by almost all nations called the UNFCCC where the signatories agreed that climate change is a global problem that needs a global solution. The nations that signed this agreement are called Parties to the UNFCCC. or just “parties” for short. The next and final step in resolving the climate crisis and to get the Montreal Protocol for the Climate signed by all Parties was to call a “Conference of Parties” or COP for the parties to sign a binding emission reduction agreement. That the COP would produce the global climate action agreement was a given since the UN had produced the Montreal Protocol and since the Parties had signed the UNFCCC.

But SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE, the CONFERENCE OF PARTIES that the UN was sure would yield a global climate action agreement just like the Montreal Protocol and the UNFCCC, ended without a signed “Montreal Protocol for the Climate (MPFC). NOW WHAT????

IT WAS THIS UNANTICIPATED FAILURE OF THE UN THAT BEGAN THE LONG AND COMICAL SEQUENCE OF COP AFTER COP NUMBERED FROM 1 TO 25 AND NOW EXTENDED TO 26. AFTER THE SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE FAILURE OF WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE FIRST AND ONLY COP, THE UN BUREAUCRATS DECIDED THAT ALL THEY NEEDED TO DO WAS TO HOLD THE COP AGAIN WITH SOME CHANGES TO THE CLIMATE ACTION CONTRACT, TO OFFER FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO THE POOR COUNTRIES AND CHARGE THE RICH COUNTRIES FOR THAT ASSISTANCE, AS WELL AS TO SCHEDULE SPEECHES BY CLIMATE SCIENTISTS WITH GREATER FEAR APPEAL AGAINST FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS.

COP2 2006: SO THE COP WAS HELD AGAIN IN 2006, THIS TIME IN GENEVA SWITZERLAND, WITH CHANGES THE UN BUREAUCRATS WERE SURE WOULD YIELD A GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION AGREEMENT. ACCORDING TO THE UN, THE REPEAT COP, NOW KNOWN AS COP2, ADOPTED 18 DECISIONS ABOUT EXEMPTIONS, FINANCE, TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE, AND SOMETHING CALLED “EFFECTIVE EVALUATION” BUT SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, THE SECOND ATTEMPT AT THE COP YIELDED NO CLIMATE ACTION AGREEMENT. THE REPEAT COP, NOW KNOWN AS COP2, HAD FAILED JUST AS THE ORIGINAL COP HAD.

 

SO THE UN HAD TO MAKE YET ONE MORE ATTEMPT TO GET THE PARTIES TO SIGN A GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION PROGRAM. THIS NEXT MEETING WAS HELD IN KYOTO JAPAN IN 1997 AND IT IS KNOWN AS COP3. THERE THE UN IN CONCERT WITH ITS IPCC CLIMATE CHANGE SPECIALISTS HAD DEMANDED A 60% REDUCTION IN FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS BY 2012 BUT SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, IN THE END ALL THEY COULD GET THE PARTIES TO SIGN WAS A REDUCTION OF 5.2%.

 THE SHORT OF THE STORY IS THAT The UN bureaucrats were unable to comprehend the enormous difference between changing refrigerants in the Montreal Proocol and overhauling the world’s energy infrastructure, and the idea that the Montreal Protocol could be repeated in the climate issue encouraged the UN bureaucrats to continue the process of tweeking the contract, of bringing in more impressive speakers and more scary assessments of what will happen if we don’t do the MPFC. The short version of this story is that after COP3, COP4, COP5, COP6, COP7, COP8, COP9, COP10, COP11, COP12, COP13, COP14, and the very dramatic COP15 in Copenhagen that was described by climate scientists, climate activists, and the UN bureaucrats as a DO OR DIE meeting. It died. But the climate movement and the UN could not accept this devastating failure and the UN bureaucrats decided that what they needed was a change in strategy. It was the devastating failure in Copenhagen that convinced the UN bureaucrats that more and more speakers with greater and greater fear of climate change will not work and will not deliver the MPFC. It was in Copenhagen that the subtle shift in strategy was made. The new strategy was to keep toning down the demands in the MPFC until all the Parties would sign the climate agreement.

THE NEW DESPERATION STRATEGY OF THE UN BUREAUCRATS WAS THEN, THAT IF THEY WON’T SIGN THE CONTRACT WE WROTE, WE MUST WRITE THE CONTRACT THEY WILL SIGN AND IN COP25 IN PARIS, THIS DESPERATE STRATEGY BECAME TRANSFORMED INTO THE TWILIGHT ZONE. THE DESPERATION OF THE UN TO HAVE SOMETHING IN THEIR HAND THEY COULD CALL AN AGREEMENT TOOK THEM TO THE TWILIGHT ZONE STRATEGY OF “IF THEY WON’T SIGN THE CONTRACT WE WROTE AND IF THEY CAN’T AGREE ON A SINGLE CONTRACT LET THEM EACH WRITE THE CONTRACT THEY WILL SIGN SEPARATELY. THESE SEPARATE AND INCONSISTENT CONTRACTS WRITTEN SEPARATELY BY EACH PARTICIPATING COUNTRY WERE THEN COLLECTED INTO THE SAME BOX AND THAT BOX WAS THEN CALLED THE PARIS AGREEMENT, THE FIRST AGREEMENT THAT THE UN WAS ABLE TO GET FROM THE PARTIES SINCE COP1 AND THIS BOX SOON BECAME FAMOUS AS THE SO CALLED “PARIS AGREEMENT” WITH THE UN VINDICATED AND EVEN CONGRATULATED FOR HAVING FINALLY DELIVERED THE GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION PROGRAM, THE SO CALLED MONTREAL PROTOCOL FOR THE CLIMATE.

The new desperate strategy was this: If they won’t sign the contract we wrote let them write the contract that they will sign. And so it was that in COP25 in Paris, France that this new strategy was implemented where each nation could independently and in isolation write the agreement that it was willing to sign and then sign it. The collection of these “INDC”s that don’t agree is then assumed to be an AGREEMENT of some kind so the UN can say that they did their job and delivered the MPFC. The contradictions in this claim have gone unchallenged and so it is to this day that we still accept a collection of INDCs that don’t agree and that are not binding as some kind of global climate action contract that can be claimed to be the delivery of the promised MPFC. The reality is that the Paris Agreement is not an Agreement to agree but an agreement to disagree and that therefore there is no MPFC and no global agreement to cut global emissions and that this is why we are in an illogical climate action plan of the climate heroism of nation states without a MPFC to reduce global emissions.

The new strategy of the UN Secretary General of a role as cheerleader for climate heroism of nation states is now the confused state of affairs in the expectation that the UN would deliver the MPFC. That didn’t happen. We do not have an MPFC. THE ONLY FUNCTION OF THE PARIS AGREEMENT IS THAT IT ALLOWS THE UN TO PUNCH OUT WITH A FACE SAVING CLAIM OF HAVING DELIVERED THE EXPECTED MPFC SUCCESS. AND YET, THAT WE NEED A COP26 IN GLASGOW IN 2021 IS THE EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS NO MPFC. AFTER BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND MORE THAN 25 YEARS OF THE PROMISE OF DELIVERING THE MPFC, ALL THE UN CAN DO IS TO SCHEDULE YET ANOTHER COP.

RELATED POST ON THE PARIS AGREEMENT LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/06/05/the-paris-agreement/

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