COP27 must confront the global climate crisis

By Fr Sean McDonagh
Independent Catholic News
September 18, 2022

The Intergovernmental governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began its work in 1988. Its object was to provide the world with a clear scientific understanding of climate change and its environmental and socio-economic consequences for our planet. During the next 30 years the IPCC produced comparative Assessment Report every five to seven years outlining the global climate crisis and what we should do about it.

The first Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place in Germany in March 1995. Some people, working in the fossil fuel industry denied the negative consequences of carbon dioxide so that humans would continue to use fossil fuels as they had done for two centuries. In Ireland some farmers claimed that the methane produced by their cows is not a serious greenhouse gas and they have increased their number of cows dramatically since 2015. Naturally, they reject any reduction in cattle numbers, even though 35% of greenhouse gases comes from agriculture.

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