Is Planet Earth making progress on addressing climate change?

A fast charging station at Fully Charged Live, an electric vehicle, renewable and clean energy and urban mobility exhibition, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. While more and more consumers want clean vehicles, clean energy, and to do their part, fossil fuel conglomerates are still actively lobbying for expanding extraction of 'dirty energy' sources. — AP

EVERY year, leaders from around the planet come and speak, share their concerns about global events, and focus on a theme or two at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

The 2023 event, held from Sept 18 to 26 at UN headquarters in New York City, included a session on climate action and a discussion on preparedness for the next pandemic, recognising the urgency of building on what we learned from Covid-19.

If ever we needed global consensus and action, this year was the moment when we all might have reasonably expected our leaders to step up. The backdrop of climate-related disasters is all too visible – forest fires, devastating storms, drought, filthy air in cities, and climate-driven migration.

So my expectation was that we would see some bold moves. The UN called for a “Climate Ambition Summit” seeking to accelerate action, with secretary-general António Guterres noting that Earth would warm by an average of 2.8°C compared with pre-industrial levels by the end of the century – well beyond targets set by the international climate pact – if far more isn’t done now by top-polluting nations.

“The move from fossil fuels to renewables is happening, but we are decades behind,” Guterres said in his speech. “We must make up time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels.”

But the outcome of the meeting seems to have been that there are no new commitments. And the United Kingdom, much to the bafflement of many of the ruling party’s own MPs, reneged on its legally binding commitments to reach net zero emissions of global warming gasses by 2050.

It’s time to call this out for what it is. Politicians are running scared. Burying their heads in the sand while the evidence of the damage we are doing becomes ever clearer – and they are particularly afraid to confront the fossil fuel lobby and its slick advertising executives. It’s down to those of us who speak truth to power to do just that.

In the absence of political courage, I see some hope on a couple of fronts; not enough, mind you, but the pendulum does seem to be swinging at least a little bit.

The links between the state of the climate and the state of human health are becoming more widely accepted. We’re starting to expose and dismantle the silos around health and accelerating discourse about universal healthcare. Pandemic preparedness is gaining traction in international and national debates and discussions.

Of course, more is needed, but here in Malaysia the ongoing work on developing a National Planetary Health Action Plan is good not only for us, but also as an example we can share with other countries. And we need our leaders to speak up more on this.

Secondly, despite rather than because of politicians and politics, the planet is headed somewhat in the right direction on the clean energy transition.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency and the world’s foremost energy economist, said at the end of September that much more needs to be done but that the rapid uptake of solar power and electric vehicles (EVs) is encouraging.

Solar photovoltaic installations and EV sales are in line with what they should be. But he also noted that greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector are still stubbornly high, and that the extreme weather seen around the world this year had shown the climate is already changing at a frightening speed.

So we see an interesting divide in the private sector: Consumers want clean vehicles, clean energy, and to do their part. Providers of EVs, photovoltaic cells and others in related fields are responding – indeed, clean energy investments in the last two years have seen a huge 40% increase. But at the same time the fossil fuel conglomerates are actively lobbying for expanding extraction of oil, gas and coal, frightening politicians, consumers and others that “more time” is needed for transition – while they pocket US$4 trillion (RM18.8 trillion) in profits this year, none of which will be donated to the funds that have been set up to enable the transition to clean energy (such as the Green Energy Fund or the Global Environment Facility). Instead, that money will go into the bank accounts of their shareholders, insulated from the worst ravages of the climate crisis by their petro-chemical-earned wealth.

Sadly, politicians’ collective acceptance of the lowest common denominator has become the norm at international gatherings, at a time when political leadership and robust decisions have never been more urgently needed.

If statements made at the General Assembly were matched with action, then we might not be in the place that we are. Malaysia’s statement this year included rededication to the UN’s mission, while its support of the planetary health agenda through the side event we hosted on pandemic preparedness was visionary. But the statement was light on how we navigate our way forward in this period of increasing complexity.

So, is there any hope? My sense is that there is, but if we simply wait for politicians to show us the way then we’re out of time.

At the Global Futures Conference, which took place in New York at the same time as UNGA, a group of respected researchers laid out 10 “must haves” that must be actioned if we are to maintain the planet as a pleasant place in which humanity can live. None of them is new, none of them is surprising, but the fact that they have all been included in one easy-to-read document provides us all with a clearer view of what we are up against and what we need to do going forward.

It is my firm intention that Malaysia provides some leadership on working out how we turn these 10 must haves into a series of implementable actions when we host the sixth Planetary Health Annual Meeting and Summit in April next year.

You can learn more about the “Ten Must Haves” here. Find out more about the Planetary Health Annual Meeting and Summit at pham2024.com.

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Dr Jemilah Mahmood, a physician and experienced crisis leader, was appointed the executive director of the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health at Sunway University in August 2021. She is the founder of aid organisation Mercy Malaysia and has served in leadership roles internationally with the United Nations and Red Cross for the last decade. She writes on Planetary Health Matters once a month in Ecowatch. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.