LET'S LEAD CHANGE

Walking around Expo City Dubai where COP28 is held now is a truly immersive experience. The blend of people, cultures, colours, sounds and sights is undeniably beautiful and memorable.

Inspiring messages, like the title of this article, lurk around every corner, should you choose to notice.

A big "thank you" to the Ministry of Environment and Water of Bulgaria for inviting me to participate in the eventful programme of the very first Bulgarian COP pavillion and by extention become part of the pink-labelled "party overflow" crowd at COP28 with access to the so called "blue zone" where diplomatic negotiations take place.

Those of you who know me better are well aware of the fact that climate change sits high on my agenda. Having completed a university degree in international relations, naturally makes me quite interested in the very mechanics of the negotiations process too - from the careful (or not so careful) wording of messages to sequencing of actions and public relations with the wider audience.

The Conference of Parties (COP) gatherings offer unlimited supply of evidence how diverse and complex human nature is, how difficult it is to achieve common goals, even in the face of an impending crisis, and how painfully slowly progress is achieved nevertheless.

The controversy of COP28 being lead by an oil executive, the rethoric around what is a science-based approach to reducing manmade greenhouse gas emissions and is fossil fuels phase down and phase out inevitable, is, to put it mildly, confusing to the wider audience. It is also funny how much it resembles the political conversation on coal phase down and phase out in Bulgaria.

Change is difficult. Letting go of something you know well, something that served you well (and may be made you very rich in the process), only to replace it with something new, unfamiliar and presumably difficult to manage, is not exacly a smooth process.

The "good" news is: we do not really have a choice that allows us to stay in the comfort zone. Change is happening. Irrespective of us realising it or not, we will deal with the consequences.

Climate change is very, very real. You can see it in the rising number on the termometer scale, you can feel the hotter and longer heatwaves, the longer hours farmers need to work in the field for a diminished output, the prolonged draughts, the torrential rains causing a 100-year flooding event, roughly every 10 years, the changing wind patterns and ocean currents, the increased frequency of hurricanes, and so on, and so on...

By the way, if you are visiting COP28, do not miss the "Passage of Water" art work by Google and NASA. It is quite impressive use of technology to show how human activities and climate change are depleting the planet's fresh water resources with a cosmic effect.

So, what choice do we have then?

We can choose to hope. Because hope is a political act of the highest order. Hope drives ambition to act, to control that change, to adapt and mitigate its most destructive forces. Action must follow the ambition. Coherent, informed actions, science-based, well-thought and engineered local solutions with a global (CO2 reduction) footprint.

So, here we are.

Momentum has built for the establishment of a global renewable energy target at COP28.

The call to action sets global targets to triple the installed capacity of renewable energy to at least 11 TW and double the rate of global energy efficiency improvements from roughly 2% to an annual figure of 4% by 2030, a goal summed up by the slogan: “Double down and triple up.”

"A global target to 2030 sends a clear signal to governments, industry, investors and civil society on the unprecedented scale and speed of renewables deployment required over the next seven years to limit global warming to a 1.5°C pathway", says the Global Renewables Alliance and I agree.

The details of how to implement that target deserve an article of its own.

In the meantime, remember that a cup of coffee, even more so, if it is a specal Ethiopean ritual, mostly helps with resetting the mind for greater deeds.

On that note, I leave COP28 today to start working on the target implementation!