What We Need from the Climate Summit: Daily Brief

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November 2, 2022
By Andrew Stroehlein
Contact me at DailyBriefTeam@hrw.org and Twitter @astroehlein.

In today's Daily Brief:

Will COP27 Bring Climate Action?
Wrongheaded Camp Closures in Nigeria
Heinous Attack in Somalia
Take Note
Listen: Fighting Oppression in Egypt
Quote of the Day: Egypt

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What We Need from the Climate Summit

Sunday is the start of the annual global climate summit, but the storm clouds are already gathering.

Along with the “climate of fear” host nation Egypt has imposed on non-governmental groups in the run up to the 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, there’s a global fear. Will the assembled government representatives from around the world address the global climate crisis properly?

A quick review of the science…

Global temperatures have been rising because humans have been pumping too many greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere, in particular carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

Oil, gas and coal had been just sitting there, holding carbon in the ground and not hurting anything, for millions of years. Then, we came along and extracted and burned them, releasing that carbon as carbon dioxide to the air.

The result is, the planet is now about 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in the pre-industrial 1800s.

We’re unlikely to reverse that global temperature increase, but with ambitious action by governments, we could slow things down, so it doesn’t go past a still manageable 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times.

To have any hope of meeting that target, governments need to commit to rapidly phasing out all fossil fuel extraction and use. Specifically, this means stopping authorization for all new fossil fuel projects, and ending government subsidies and international finance, for oil, gas, and coal development.

This isn’t a “save the planet” sentiment, mind you. The big spinning rock will still be here regardless of anything the humans on it do. The question is how livable it will be for us.

The climate crisis is about saving people, and given the deadly impacts of climate change – including increased severe storms and droughts, and coastal cities facing rising sea levels – governments have a moral responsibility and a human rights obligation to address it.

Humanity desperately needs government representatives gathered at COP27 to act boldly against fossil fuels to prevent the most devastating impacts of climate change.

A woman carries her belongings at the Bakassi camp in Maiduguri, Nigeria on November 30, 2021, as residents vacate the camp ahead of the Borno State government’s closure of all internally displaced person camps. © 2021 Audu Marte / AFP via Getty Images

Wrongheaded Camp Closures in Nigeria

First, you’re forced to flee your home because of an insurgency. Then, the government pushes you out of the camp you fled to.

For more than 200,000 people in Nigeria’s Borno State, this is the grim reality.

Nigeria’s conflict with the Islamist armed group Boko Haram has displaced more than two million people in the country’s northeast since 2009. Many have sought refuge in camps set up and run by state governments across the northeast region.

Government authorities, in collaboration with humanitarian organizations, have provided food, water, sanitation facilities, health care, and education to those displaced, often for years.

But over the past year, Borno State authorities have compelled more than 140,000 people to evacuate eight camps in the state capital, Maiduguri. Two other camps are also set to be closed this year, adding 74,000 more.

The decision to close the camps was perhaps made with the intention of weaning people off humanitarian aid, but if so, it hasn’t worked. In forcing people from camps without creating viable alternatives for support, all it’s done is push people deeper into destitution.

In a new report, we’re asking the authorities to give their decision a rethink.

Heinous Attack in Somalia

Last week, residents of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu suffered a devastating attack.

As secondary school students and their families gathered to collect their graduation certificates at the Ministry of Education, two car bombs ripped into the crowd. At least 121 people were killed and hundreds more injured.

The Islamist armed group Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the bombings, which like many of its previous attacks, appeared designed to inflict maximum death and suffering on ordinary Somalis. They’ve also repeatedly attacked education facilities, teachers, and students.

Just why they’re so viciously inhuman is beyond me. What kind of moral blackhole of a movement aims to commit mass murder over and over again?

Somali authorities obviously need to investigate and bring those responsible to justice. Somalia’s international partners can assist in that effort and also help victims receive appropriate psychological and medical support.

The scale of the horror means many of those affected may face a long road ahead.