Bureaucracy in the Amazon

President Lula of Brazil had a vision of hosting the 30th conference of the parties in the Amazon, in Belem, in part to raise awareness, allegedly, about the dying state of the Amazon and deforestation more generally. He declared that this COP must be the “COP of implementation.” All this with prior knowledge that the world’s biggest economy, the US, would be sitting this one out. If we set Lula’s aspiration of “the COP of implementation” as the metric by which we measure the success or failure of the COP, then it is hard to escape a bleak conclusion

As the 190+ countries reached a “compromise” deal, which is how some news reports describe the deal — in the final draft of the deal, the term “fossil fuels” was omitted. The term “deforestation" was only mentioned once. There is also speculation as to why the COP was hosted in Belem of all the Amazonian cities. According to some locals, the reason for this is the President trying to win popularity with the people in the State of Para, by investing in infrastructure in Belem for the purpose of COP thus helping the local population through a boost in economic activity.

So, what was the deal?

The politically correct view would be to maintain that the deal primarily supported developing countries in the global south with financing known as “adaptation finance”, for tackling the emerging public safety threats that come with the climate calamity. However, a more bleak or cynical analysis could be that the deal amounts to nothing more than the Urdu word “bheek”, or a “handout” in English. Even with that, however, the details as to how this “bheek” will be implemented remain unclear. Adaptation financing is in and of itself, to some extent, from natural adaptation mechanisms such as wetlands, rainforests, and mangroves, which are all actively being logged for the wood industry, or are being decimated for urban infrastructure projects. At the same time, there’s no way to ensure that any funds that will be received by developing countries will be used for their intended purpose, considering that many developing countries are corrupt or dictatorships, who could easily pocket any financial assistance intended to reach the people.

The deal could be explained with the help of an analogy. When people give money to beggars in South Asia, a practice as old as any, there is no desire or motivation to structurally end or root out poverty. Instead, we seek to relieve oneself of guilt in the moment and do what’s easy for us. Therefore, it can also be described as hush money. According to reports, the oil rich countries fought tooth and nail to resist even the mere mention of fossil fuels in the final deal.

According to reports by the BBC, the high level organisers and participants of COP desperately wanted any deal, because at times it appeared as if the whole process would fall apart, and therefore, any deal would be better than no deal, lest the world loses faith in COP, and therefore bilateralism.

As for the countries that are the most severely impacted by the consequences of the climate crisis, hush money will do for now.

According to the BBC, governments and organizers feared that if there was no deal then it could lead to a collapse in trust in the UN conference altogether.

Lying to the Public

In a high level ministerial event, a lot was said just a few days before the hollow deal was approved. “We must keep 1.5 alive”, said the representative from NewZealand during a high level ministerial event on the 19th of November, at the COP venue. This is concerning considering that according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), we have already crossed 1.5 degrees celsius increase of global heating above pre industrial times, as of 2024.

One of the most severely impacted countries by the climate crisis in Bangladesh. “The world suffers from irreversible climate change and a trust deficit”, were the words of the Bangladesh “Additional Secretary”, which were likely one of the few words of wisdom spoken from the podium at COP. The mention of the “trust deficit” was bound to get anyone’s attention in the room for the simple reason that all the statements that were made before and after this one were purely symbolic and performative in their nature, to an extent that they all seem to have blurred into one by the end of the session.

In a previous piece which included an interview with NASA scientist Peter Kalmus by the Express Tribune, he referenced a confrontation he had with John Kerry, (the former secretary of state, presidential candidate, and the man who made the Paris agreement possible and served as the US special envoy on the climate) - where John Kerry seemed to be in denial of the idea that the fossil fuel industry had captured COP. Fast forward to the present day, the United States was not present at COP and fossil fuel dominant economies were successful in capturing and watering down the deal.

The “Banality of Evil”

Despite the UN secretary general’s warning the day before that a 2 degree world is a “death sentence for many”, if one looks around at the COP venue, one sees a large crowd of men and women, many in formal attire, and the most consequential ones who work for various oil producing governments, and their sole purpose to be at COP is to ensure that nothing ambitious is agreed to at the expense of their interests. These delegates are emotionally and physically removed from the ground reality of 1.5 degrees increase today, as well as the reality of what a 2 degree increase in fossil fuels means on the ground.

In a book called “Eichman in Jerusalem”, Erendt reported on her reflections of the trial of Adolf Eichman, a high ranking Nazi who had been a fugitive from justice in Argentina, but was at last arrested in the 1960s and prosecuted in Jerusalem for his crimes in the Holocaust.

Erendt’s main insight was to take note of Eichmann as an individual. To Erendt, Eichmann appeared to be a psychologically normal person, but one whose brain was operating a dangerous ideology. In other words, dangerous ideas can make normal individuals commit horrific actions.

Eichmann was in charge of transportation and most of his everyday work would revolve around desk work and paper shuffling, and yet, just like that, he played a major role in the Holocaust.

Human psychology has evolved in such a way that we only view visually grotesque acts of direct violence as violent, and tend to rationalise the more banal acts of bureaucracy, even when the bureaucracy is enabling a far greater evil.

A current example of this is found in the systemic ignorance around the climate crisis.. At COP, thousands of delegates and journalists are present, in suits and ties, grabbing their coffees and food from the vegan stalls, and having fun with their colleagues and friends, all the while enabling a reality caused by inaction, which will quite possibly kill billions of people. That is at least according to recent estimations by actuaries, on the impact of climate change later on in the century. They claim that 4 billion people could be dead before the end of the century, as highlighted in an article in the Guardian by Sandra Leville, titled: Global economy could face 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 from climate shocks, say actuaries

With countries like the US completely withdrawing from anything related to tackling the climate crisis and with other G7 economies like Canada actively contemplating more pipelines and increasing oil and gas exports, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that COP is but a performance to keep up appearances of decency and civility.