Jeroen van den Bergh: "We cannot keep expecting COPs to solve the climate crisis"
Following the completion of COP28, held earlier this month in Dubai, ICTA-UAB climate policy researcher Jeroen van den Bergh says we cannot keep expecting COPs to solve the climate crisis because the Paris Agreement that they aim to advance is essentially promises on paper.
Jeroen van den Bergh highlights that this agreement is in effect a collection of voluntary pledges which does not bind countries in any way.
"Just look at the increasing global emissions in 2022 and 2023," he says, insisting that the only way to lower emissions is for countries with the most ambitious climate goals to create a carbon-pricing coalition, or a "climate action club" of sorts, to implement a uniform carbon price.
He argues that the proposed carbon-pricing coalition would create economic, moral and political pressure on non-members to join the coalition. “Not an easy scenario, but the most chanceful."
The coalition could speak with one powerful voice at climate conferences and help negotiate a global carbon price, leveling the playing field and allowing countries to escape the limits of unilaterality and, in coordination with others, strengthen their climate policies.
The UAB, with Sustainable Development Goals
Reduced inequalities
Affordable and clean energy
Responsible consumption and production
Partnerships for the goals
Climate action