There are many things that are wrong with COPs

After spending the week at the conference, hearing some great speeches, seeing some great work from experts, and observing many protests, I might hesitantly agree that it is actually our best shot at doing anything about the climate crisis on the global scale. By saying this, I am however not trying to excuse the greenwashing, the inaction, the obvious business interests, the propaganda of the organisers. I merely want to acknowledge that the scale on which we need to agree to act is massive, not to mention that everybody comes with the “what can we get from this” mindset which makes the agreement that more difficult.

There are many things that are wrong with COPs and which should be improved. However,  we, the civil society, should not give up and hand this conference to private companies and lobbyists trying to influence politicians for their own gains, even though it brings so much frustration.

To conclude, on one hand, my perspective slightly changed after a full week in Sharm El-Sheikh, however I still stand by the first sentence that I wrote down – The most privileged people in the world gather to discuss, not change the status quo in a very artificial setting. With that in mind, we will keep showing up and keep pushing for change, even if it is measured in steps not miles.