Friday, 22 August 2025
FOR anyone concerned about the devastating effects of climate — and, frankly, that should be all of us — it is indefensible that Governments and the large corporations which have the potential to influence measures to keep temperature rises below 1.5° of pre-industrial levels don't do more. Instead of taking steps towards reducing their organisation's carbon footprint, cut down waste and seek more sustainable ways of operating, they continue to manufacture plastics. fly their employees vast distances to attend overseas conferences which could easily be held online via platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
Instead of focusing on the harvesting of renewable energy, energy companies believe that building new nuclear power plants is the answer to our reliance on fossil fuels. Notwithstanding its detrimental aesthetic impact on the area, Hinkley Point C, in Somerset, for example, will, allegedly, provide energy to six million homes when it is up and running via its 3.2 gigawatt (GW) output. Of course there are always two sides to the coin. The construction of this and other nuclear power plants will create thousands of jobs. Government reports suggest that Hinkley Point C is estimated to bring £4bn into the regional economy as it replaces its predecessors Hinkley Point A, which ended production at the turn of the millennium and Hinkley Point B, which closed in 2023.
Countries that should be taking the biggest strides to stop further temperature rises are simply digging in their heels. It was inconceivable to me how the UN's COP28 conference (Conference of the Parties) could be held Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, the greatest oil producer in the world or that COP29 should have taken place in Baku, Azerbaijan, the world's largest carbon emitter. COP conferences, held each November, are attended by delegates from around two hundred countries. Accompanying them, inevitably, is their impossibly large posse of support staff, journalists, photographers and other assorted hangers-on. It's hard to ignore the outrageous hypocrisy. The elaborate time and carbon-intensive preparations and the number of flights and corresponding carbon footprint it takes to transport the people from all corners of the globe to discuss — wait for it — measures to reduce climate change. Events which, with today's available technology. could be held from delegates' offices or even their kitchen table via Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
Is it really surprising that the costs involved in staging COP conferences do not equate with the relatively minor success of discussions held? A bunch of exhausted, jet-lagged folk outside their comfort zones of their culture and home environment, distracted by the multitude of media reports varying in accuracy, personal messages from home or discomfort due to unfamiliar food. It's not a very reassuring mental image, but one that I believe is not too far fetched or unrealistic.
Hosted by the United Nation's Environmental Protection Agency, the latest abject failure of a major climate change event was the Plastic Pollution Treaty in Geneva, held in early August 2025. According to the UN, plastic production and waste is projected to triple by 2060, causing significant damage both the planet and human health. It was, therefore, devastating to read that the event ended without a deal being reached. As one diplomat put it: "the position of petrostates remains deeply entrenched and the US appears dead set against the creation of any new global agreement".
It remains to be seen what successes — or failures — COP30, held this year in Brazil (10 Nov - 21 Nov 2025) will bring. Personally, I don't hold out much hope that it will yield more realistic results than previous conferences have, but as an advocate for actively reducing the effects of climate change I have to keep hope alive. It's all and the rest of the world has.
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REFERENCES
Plastics Treaty talks
collapse without a deal after “chaotic” negotiations
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/08/15/plastics-treaty-talks-collapse-without-a-deal-after-chaotic-negotiations
(accessed 22 August
2025)
Plastics Treaty negotiations end without agreement in Geneva
https://iucn.org/story/202508/plastics-treaty-negotiations-end-without-agreement-geneva-yet-many-countries-and-0
(accessed 22 August
2025)
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