The host arrangement for COP 31 was announced today. It is an interesting deal, with Turkey hosting, Australia presiding “for the purposes of negotiations” and a Pacific Island state holding a pre-COP event.
The theme for COP 31 should be “life or death.” And by theme I mean the high-level priorities and focus areas. It appears that Australia will be making these decisions, although the details are unclear. They will be under considerable pressure from Pacific island states.
This is what really matters: human lives, and human impacts.
A COP focused on that would focus all other discussions. Once we really see the human impacts in stark reality then we can have meaningful national and global conversations about action, mitigation, adaptation, and climate finance.
The COP could focus on human rights, and human impacts, including deaths so far reasonably attributable to climate change, and estimates of deaths to come, according to each pathway (totally doable), as well as impacts to health and other key rights.
States do not currently track deaths caused by climate change, and there is no obligation to track or report them, as that is not mandated in national climate reporting under any IPCC / UNFCCC agreements. Would states agree to it? It’s really just information, it comes with no obligations, no admissions of guilt or wrong-doing. But it would have the effect of completely changing the narrative, and change the trajectory of all future COPs. After that the true impacts of our leader’s actions and inactions would be impossible to avoid. And if they don’t agree to it, even pushing for it changes the narrative.
As Johnny Cash said “I am not obsessed with death — I’m obsessed with living.” So should we all be, for all people.
Feel the Heat 
“This is what really matters: HUMAN LIVES AND HUMAN IMPACTS”. So, too many humans and our “domestic” animals are using/depleting too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, including GHGs and climate collapse. Last year and for a 2yr. period, I was tracking daily Northern Hemisphere land and sea surface temp’s on C3S’ “Climate Pulse” page, after seeing the mind blowing reality that 1.2 trillion tons of global ice were melting annually and a C3S report of a 0.2 degC ANNUAL temp increase for the preceding 18 mos., so 1 degC increase over the C3S baseline of 1991-2020 every 5 yrs. I reported it and got thrown out of the comfy 0.2 degC global temp increase PER DECADE orthodoxy church. That pace, during an El Nino, has slowed to 0.1degC annually and 1 deg per decade now, although C3S suddenly stopped reporting daily temps a couple of months ago. Thus, it has occurred to this 80yo retired physician/psychiatrist that NOTHING about our collapsing climate should be believed without accurate status reporting and none seems to exist right now, perhaps thanks to the madmen rapidly destroying American scientific learning institutions, in defense of the profits of fossil fuel predatory Capitalist interests. Honestly, I am a person of faith and have much less interest in HUMAN LIVES AND HUMAN IMPACTS than I do in my dear Mother Earth and all other life on the planet.
Humanity’s explosion in numbers and consumption of natural resources has been compared to a “plague”, or a “virus”, rather than an a long evolved lifeform. I’m a Celtic animist, and student of the lifeways of our distant ancestral migratory Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands, who lived reverently in their small groups of 150 (Dunbar number) or less, and in a self-sustaining ecological balance with the rest of our once abundant biome. We have DEVOLVED from that lifeway and their numbers, 1/3000th of our 8.2B, IMHO. The negative impact of our incessant fossil fuel burning waste heat production and GHG emitting power hungry insanity on the rest of life should be evident to anyone paying attention. Are you paying attention? Really? Hmmmm? Data centers requiring nation sized electricity production? We have allowed the predatory Capitalist madmen/women to steal our sanity. Have a blessed day/evening and WAKE THE HELL UP!
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