Emissions are rising, climate disasters are worsening: So are Cop summits working?

There remains little time to chart a better course for the future, writes Nathan Cooper

Last summer, a third of Pakistan was under water (AFP via Getty Images)

Greenwashing, fragmented real-world action, and the continued failure to reign-in climate-altering emissions are increasingly defining international summits designed to address the climate crisis.

The UN’s ongoing Global Stocktake process is an assessment of international progress on tackling the climate emergency. With leaders from the UN, the hosts of this year’s climate summit, and governments across the world meeting in Bonn, Germany yesterday, there remains little time to chart a better course for the future.

While recognising the vital role of the 2015 Paris Agreement in securing international commitments to stop runaway global heating, the latest UN report states that “collective progress on mitigation remains inadequate”, and we will not hit our targets.