Thinking the Unthinkable at COP29

Hope for the Future

Although my introduction to COP29 was difficult, I did have some more encouraging experiences.

Firstly, I had the amazing opportunity to listen to Razan Al Mubarak and Nigar Arpadarai, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions for COP28 and COP29 respectively. These two people are inspirational.

They called for greater alignment between climate and nature policies at international and national levels, such as those discussed at this year's UN Biodiversity meeting (COP16).

They encouraged scaling up nature-based solutions, and tripling nature-climate investment by 2050 while ensuring more funding reaches indigenous communities directly.

If only the actions in all the countries present at the COP were as powerful as called for by the climate champions!

Secondly, I enjoyed representing the Centre for Landscape Regeneration (CLR) at the University of Cambridge speaking on a panel with Heiko Balzter from the University of Leicester and the Land Use for Net Zero Hub about changes in land management practices to help reduce emissions.

This is a rich subject and one where there is still so much to be done.

And finally, given the trajectory we appear to be on in terms of global temperatures, I was encouraged by the willingness of so many people to engage in discussions on the topic of "going beyond emissions reductions".

Many people in the climate science world find even considering climate repair and geo-engineering (using technology to remove greenhouse gases or mitigate the effects of climate change) unpalatable, as I once did. They worry that interfering in planetary processes to address one challenge may unleash even more damaging effects elsewhere in the system.

But given the sluggish efforts on emissions reduction and the continuing efforts to expand fossil fuel production, it appears to me that ignoring what some climate journalists have deemed "insane ideas" is now just wrong.

My hopes for next year's COP are that we might see the discussions of going beyond emissions reduction being held in the plenary sessions as well.

We have made too little progress too slowly, and we owe it to subsequent generations to build our knowledge on a wider range of potential actions to keep a lid on temperature rise whilst we fix the fundamental causes of climate change - excess greenhouse gases.

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