Adrian Macey: Victoria University climate academic believes COP conferences have become unproductive

A climate academic says the COP climate conferences have achieved little in actually cutting emissions.

It comes as COP29 takes place in Azerbaijan, with a new deal forged which will see developing countries supported to the tune of $500 billion to manage climate impacts.

But Victoria University's Adrian Macey told Mike Hosking more must be done, and thinks the conferences have become unproductive.

“We go into each COP saying: ‘this is the last chance to save the planet and if we fail here, there’ll be dire consequences’, and we go ahead and fail.”

He says we need more transformational change.

"Yep, it's useful to have that, but in terms of the planet, it isn't a game changer in actual reduction of emissions."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Cop twenty nine, they stumbled across the line with a
new deal to help poorer nations. Like so many times before,
it was on the verge of collapse. Of course, are
the money raised for the fund isn't what they wanted
or anywhere near it? That it was better than nothing?
Ed young professor at the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute,
Adrian Macy is back. Will this Adrian? Good morning to you?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning mite?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Is this still useful a cop?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
In a word? No?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I think the worst I ever did was sticking a
number next to it, because twenty nine just reminds you
there were twenty eight other times it didn't quite come
together the way they thought.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, we have had it has been a necessary negotiation.
Since two thousand and five, when the latest phase began,
we've had nineteen cops and that have been one outstanding.
The successful one was the Paris one back in twenty fifteen,
which did set a soundtrack with a new international climate regime.
It's pretty good, it looks pretty robust. This last cop

(00:57):
tidied up one of the last pieces of powers of
green that hadn't been finaliz satus on international carbon markets.
But aside from a New Zealand played a role in that,
but aside from that, this is just a repetition of
the pattern we go into each cop at the end
of the year saying this is roughly, this is the
last chance to save the planet and if we fail

(01:17):
here there'll be dire consequences, and we go ahead and sail.
This year was interesting because it's the first time there
have been quite a few voices saying, hang on a minute,
is this really the right way of going about things?
Don't need to completely revamp this negotiation. So yeah, I
didn't take much much notice as it was going along,
but every time I checked, it was going in exactly

(01:39):
the same direction, heading exactly where I thought it would
h a good political signal, you know, the money stuff.
But it's still not. You know, it's still not a
it's doing nothing. It doesn't save one ton of co
two actually decision no exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
I'm glad you raised that carbon market thing because I
was reading about that over the weekend and simon what's
been involved in this? And I couldn't quite get my
head around it because the carbon market here, to my
own it doesn't work. Is this going to be any different?
Is that this is just a global agreement on carbon trading.
Does it work?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Will it work? It's how the yes, Well, it follows on.
You might have heard of the Under the Character Protocol
what they're called the Clean Development mechanism, which was where
effectively you made a commitment to reduce emissions. It was
pretty expensive in your country. So if you pay a
developing country to do some good projects in their country,
it's cheaper. You can save submissions for the planet and
you can get the credit for them. So there's two

(02:28):
aspects there that the new new mechanism now is going
to effectively, i think, replace the Clean Development mechanism. It'll
be very bureaucratic, but the rules are a lullstot sort
of reasonable. And secondly, there is another provision they've also finalized,
which is if you want to on you to do
it by their complicated U and system, get together with
some other countries and developing countries do the same thing,

(02:49):
but make sure you do it with proper environmental category
and report back. So yep, that's it's useful to have that,
but it's not it's not a in terms of the planet.
Isn't it game changer in the actual reduction of missions.
Just the point out makers. We've got this sort of
paradigm which is coming out again in some of the commentary.
It's sort of the guilty the guilty rich versus the

(03:11):
innocent core and the guilty rich not doing enough. But
the problem is that the guilty rich, the word rich
is applied only to those countries who are roughly the
OCD countries. Some of the wealthiest countries in the world
are not included in those goals. They are invited to contribute,
but they're all all the OPEC countries, for example, They're

(03:32):
not considered rich in the u N. So the potential
there of getting that tower of funds, it's it's it's
it's been asked for by you. Just this one group
of countries who recommend who represent a smaller and smaller
proportion of global emissions.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Good talk to you, Adrian, appreciate it very much. Good
insight as always, Adria and Macy Adric and professor of
the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute. It's a good
bit of reading. It's in the news room sight that
what was involved. As far as I can talk about them,
I mean, we talked about how markets a lot on
this program, our carbon market's a complete bust because no
one turns up to buy anything, and so therefore the
credits from auction one. There are four auctions a year,

(04:09):
no one buys anything in auction one, so all the
credits from auction one go into Auction two, along with
the credits of Auction two. So you got twice as
many credits and no demands. Supply demands not hard to
work out, and by the time you get to the
end of the year auction four, no one's bought anything.
So I'm not sure really it's going to solve anything up.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
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