Letters | Climate change solutions must be sought locally or regionally, not globally

Readers discuss the efforts made at the COP27 climate summit, and why it is unfair to ask developing countries to abandon fossil fuels

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A hand reads “pay” calling for reparations for loss and damage due to climate change at the COP27 UN climate summit on November 18 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Photo: AP

Published: 11:30am, 5 Dec 2022

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Climate change consists of two components, natural and anthropogenic. The latter comes from energy production and energy consumption. Fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) are a major source of energy in developed countries that not only contributes to climate change but also to environmental pollution.

There has been a great deal of talk about and attempts to shift energy production from fossil fuels to renewable sources but there has not been a concomitant attempt so far to reduce energy consumption.

A parameter often used to judge which country is responsible for anthropogenic climate change is the total energy consumption. However, the story is quite different when the average annual per capita consumption of energy in each country is considered.

According to Our World in Data, it ranges from around 50,000 kilowatt-hours (in 2021) in high-income countries to about 1,000 kWh (in 2019) in low-income countries.

One important but contentious outcome of COP27 is an agreement to establish a “loss and damage fund”. What remains to be seen is how and who will contribute to the “loss and damage fund” and how it would be distributed as there is no legal obligation to fulfil the pledge.

It is also not clear who will decide whether a potential damage is due to anthropogenic climate change or due to natural causes, because flood and drought hazards have occurred from time immemorial. A hazard may become a disaster when the affected community lacks coping capacity which is not linked to climate change.