COP27 is over

Ayva found a pull-back toy car in the playground a while ago.

It was nothing special. The plastic was faded red. The stickers peeling off. But man, was it fast. Surprisingly fast—and she loved it.

She took it everywhere: to school, the bathroom, and to the McDonald's play area, which looks like it's closed-in, but there's a small gap that runs along the bottom of the glass panels separating the playroom from the drive-thru lane.

Ayva knew how fast the car was.

But she failed to mention this to another girl who asked if she could have a turn.

The gasp came first.

Then the flash of red as the car zipped past me, under the window, and under the tyre of a car in the drive-thru.

"Nooooooo!"

Ayva burst into tears.

We walked to the accident scene, and found the toy car in pieces. The driver of the real car was already long gone, enjoying his Big Mac, oblivious to the fury of a six-year-old.

"Why did he do that? He's so mean!" She cried harder.

It was like he'd ridden over her puppy.

"Stupid car! He must fix this! Mommy, can you fix this?!"

My heart broke for her. She'd only had the car for two days, and now it was crushed.

Experiencing loss and damage is painful, especially when it feels unfair or unjust and there's nothing you can do about it.

I can't imagine what it's like to lose everything in a flood. But that's the reality facing millions of people in Nigeria and Pakistan who've lost their belongings, their homes, and their dignity in floods caused mostly by emissions-spewing developed nations.

They're the little cars getting crushed by the big ones, who are oblivious to the pain and suffering they leave behind.

This is why the loss and damage fund, announced at COP27, is so important—and way overdue.

It was the biggest victory to come out of an otherwise ineffective conference. Because someone has to take responsibility for the carnage. And it's about time that rich nations paid their dues.

And that's the focus of this week's newsletter: Understanding the concept of loss and damage and trying to wrap my head around a world in which China holds all the energy power.

Final COP27 agreement: The good news and the bad news

Good news: One step forward for climate justice

Just when we thought COP27 would be a cop-out, there was an 11th-hour announcement: the loss and damage fund will go ahead.

Although the final COP27 deal failed to make significant progress on many other matters, the loss and damage fund is a massive win for developing countries, which often bear the brunt of the climate crisis that they did little to create.

Although the finer details will be ironed out over the coming months, here's what we know about the loss and damage fund so far:

• Vulnerable communities, like those in Nigeria and Pakistan that were recently ravaged by floods, will receive emergency funding to help them recover and rebuild after extreme weather events and to help them better adapt to future impacts.

• The fund will initially draw on contributions from developed countries and other private and public sources, such as international financial institutions.

• Conspicuously, China has been excluded from contributing to the fund—for now—because it is considered a "developing country", even though it's also considered a major polluter and has the ability and responsibility to pay its way.

I wrote more about the loss and damage fund here.

Bad news: Two steps back for climate mitigation

• No reference was made to phase down the use of all fossil fuels—only coal—and commitments from the world's biggest emitters did not materialise. However, there was a call to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

• Leaders have recommitted (although half-assedly) to the 1.5C target, a goal that many believe is slipping, if not already out of reach.

• No new restrictions on carbon markets were announced.

• Hoped-for rules to stop greenwashing did not feature.

Apart from the loss and damage fund announcement, world leaders have described the final agreement as "disappointing", "inadequate", "lacking in ambition", and a "missed opportunity to take a step forward for people and planet".

That's interesting (to me, at least)...

🐝 Honeybees' life spans are half what they were in the '70s, and research suggests the drop is due to something other than climate change. TL;DR? It's their genetics. (Treehugger)

🛢 Oil and gas industries face a brain drain as young people steer clear of oil jobs. Many who are already employed in the industry would quit tomorrow if they could get a renewable energy job. What's more, the number of people graduating from petroleum engineering programmes has plummeted, as has enrolment in petroleum engineering courses. This gives me hope in youngsters as our future leaders—and highlights the importance of educating our kids about climate change and how they can help stop it. (Grist)

😱 I'm not sure how I feel about a future where China controls most of the world's energy infrastructure, but that's apparently a possibility. China plans to "build a new economy oriented to state-driven technological solutions to the climate crisis. In the process, it aims to construct an entirely different world order that supplants capitalist globalisation".

In other words, China ramps up its renewable energy capacity to eye-watering levels, which would not only support China's energy transition but "shift it from an economic model of exporting consumer goods to the West, toward a model of equipping and financing the world’s energy transition. In doing so, it has no competitors".

China already manufactures the majority of the world's EV batteries and has 90% market share for the raw materials. The state-funding model has given Chinese companies a massive lead, which is further boosted by subsidies and legal mandates in favour of renewables.

China, according to Forbes, wants to become the Saudi Arabia of renewables. Its energy technology will reshape communities around the world in unexpected ways. A future where Chinese state-owned enterprises control significant parts of the world's power grid in places like Brazil, the Philippines, and Africa.

And with China controlling global energy markets, the rest of the world will have to massively rely on Chinese imports to transition to carbon neutrality. It's basically "a map for constructing an entirely different social order than the China we know. "

Yikes.

(Noema Magazine)

And on that happy note, I'll leave you with this...

'Til next time,

— Tarryn ✌️