Attack on rubber expected at COP27

THE UN Climate Change Conference, also known as the Conferences of the Parties (COP), has been held every year since 1995. The two-week summit would see world leaders, politicians, experts and a whole host of other people gather to discuss the climate crisis on a global level.

Given that there are 197 signatory parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), every nation, country or state in the world is effectively involved in this summit.

The next one (COP27) will be held at the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh from Nov 6 to 18.

Faced with a growing energy crisis fuelled by the war in Ukraine, record GHG (greenhouse gas) concentrations and increasing extreme weather events, COP27 will seek to renew solidarity between countries to deliver on the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

The meeting in Egypt is happening after a third of Pakistan was inundated by a massive flood and Europe experienced the hottest summer in 500 years. The fact that no country or economy is spared from the climate crisis was brutally proven by Hurricane Ian, which devastated parts of the United States last month.

According to the latest report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world is coming dangerously close to the 1.5°C threshold of global warming.

There is no doubt that COP27 is critical. The fortnight of negotiations will kick off with a two-day World Leader’s Summit, after which government officials will tackle some of the lingering issues, including finance, decarbonisation, adaptation and agriculture.

There are unconfirmed reports that COP27 will see groups questioning the sustainability of natural rubber production. There may be some truth here because the push to get natural rubber certified for sustainability has been super active of late.

The way to pressure natural rubber producers, most of whom are smallholders, to subscribe to sustainability certification is to take the issue to important climate events like COP. The approach is very much a carbon copy of the palm oil certification case.

Although Malaysia is no longer the world’s leader in natural rubber production, it is still an important economic crop. Many smallholders who are mostly low-income earners still eke out a living from this commodity.

Poverty reduction is also an important UN Sustainable Development Goal, but this may not count so much in the push for sustainability certification. Many downstream manufacturers of rubber products still depend on local rubber as raw material, not to mention the billions the country earns from the export of rubberwood furniture.

As Malaysia sends representatives to COP meetings every year, the powers that be should include experts from the rubber industry in the entourage this time to respond accordingly to any mischievous claims about natural rubber. We should galvanise support from other rubber-producing countries as well to stand with us.

But whatever the issues, we must always take our attendance at the COP meetings seriously.

PROF DATUK DR AHMAD IBRAHIM

Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI

Policy

UCSI University