Global South

Shortly after the opening ceremony of the 2023 United Nations climate negotiations in Dubai, delegates of nations around the world rose in a standing ovation to celebrate a long-awaited agreement to launch a loss and damage fund to help vulnerable countries recover from climate-related disasters. But the applause might not yet be warranted. The deal itself leaves much undecided and has been met with criticism by climate justice advocates and front-line communities. I teach global environmental politics and climate justice and have been attending and observing these negotiations for over a decade to follow the demands for just climate solutions, including loss and damage compensation for countries that have done the least to cause climate change. COP28 President Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, center, walks with world leaders and representatives of countries to the climate summit’s opening ceremony. The loss and damage fund was one of the fi...

In December 2023, negotiators from countries worldwide will meet in the United Arab Emirates for the next round of international climate talks. While the talks are considered essential to securing global agreements needed to avoid dangerous climate change, confidence in the summit, known as COP28, is at a low. One reason is the man in charge. The UAE set off a firestorm in January 2023 when it announced that Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the CEO of the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company – also known as ADNOC – would be the president-designate of the climate summit, giving him a large amount of control over the meeting’s agenda. U.S. and European politicians demanded al-Jaber’s resignation. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore claimed that fossil fuel interests had “captured the U.N. process to a disturbing degree, even putting the CEO of one of the largest oil companies in the world in as president of COP28.”...

The year 2022 was a tough one for the growing number of people living in food insecurity and energy poverty around the world, and the beginning of 2023 is looking bleak. Russia’s war on Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain and fertilizer feedstock suppliers, tightened global food and energy supplies, which in turn helped spur inflation. Drought, exacerbated in some places by warring groups blocking food aid, pushed parts of the Horn of Africa toward famine. Extreme weather disasters have left trails of destruction with mounting costs on nearly every continent. More countries found themselves in debt distress. But below the surface of almost weekly bad news, significant changes are underway that have the potential to create a more sustainable world – one in which humanity can tackle climate change, species extinction and food and energy insecurity. I’ve been involved in international sustainable development for most of my career and now teach climat...