October 26, 2021
The United Nations Climate Change Conference, 2021 is going down on November 1-12 in Glasgow Scotland. A lot of world leaders are expected to make their impassioned pleas to save the planet, reduce carbon emissions and stop the pollution.
No other region has more to lose from a crisis we did not start than that of the Caribbean and other coastal countries. We are suffering horribly with adverse weather patterns, rising sea levels and dirty oceans. Oceans that are a part of our appeal.
So we don’t need more talk. We need action. Governments worldwide need to commit to clamping down on large corporations that dump waste into the atmosphere, from cruise liners into the oceans to oil companies into the air.
There needs to be a global mechanism built in, just like they are trying to implement on the global corporate tax that they are inches away from setting up a global policing network to stop tax dodgers. We need similar for polluters.
But the environment does not hit everyone’s pockets or bottom line the same. People at the helm of these big polluters need to feel the sting of enforcement. But, I don’t have confidence in our world leaders to make that giant leap at this conference.
What I expect is a collective communication that we will endeavour to do more on combating the ravages of climate change and environmental degradation, blah, blah, blah. Just like they always do.
The real work starts at the root level of these organisations and the internal organs of the international governmental agencies. The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank and agencies as such. They need to synchronise their aid and development efforts with the UN and come up with a policing mechanism that hold people to account for pollution. Or else it cannot work. They know this.
So, unless we see a policy framework that includes all of these alphabet agencies in one policy framework for policing polluters, expect just another conference.