The climate crisis is a connection crisis

The COP process seems to have the ability to bring out the best and the worst in me.

I always consider these annual UN events an anomaly –– its the ‘dreamscape’ of what climate action could be, and also a prime example of everything that is wrong with climate action. Hundreds of cultures coming together to talk about climate change. Greenwashing and fossil fuel lobbyists taking up too much space. All at the same time.

As I close out my first 24 hours in Dubai, I’ve already been on a rollercoaster of emotions. I think this is the reality of anyone thinking about climate change for days on end, but there’s something about being at COP that makes it feel heavier and lighter simultaneously.

I know this might not make sense, but let me try to explain.

Dubai is beautiful. It’s a city that makes you look. Burj Khalifa glitters hundreds of floors into the sky. The architecture is futuristic and modern — orbs, and silver, and strange angles that make you question, “how’d they do that?” It’s a place that visually inspires the thought that anything can be possible; creativity in this way is thriving.

Dubai also hasn’t earned my trust. The 20-foot-high advertisements gracing bridges and highways as you drive into the city boast large businesses partnering with COP28 with vague taglines. “Towards Tomorrow Together.” Luxury car dealerships line the highways, selling fossil fuel lifestyles. Indoor ski hills and penguins are a taxi-ride away even though we’re in the middle of the desert. It’s a place that seems to do things “just because they can.”

I’m reeling a bit from the juxtaposition. I think it’s capturing exactly how I feel about climate change action right now. Everything is possible, and yet we’re not committing to changing how we survive, as human beings, on this planet.

Part of my role as crafting the negotiations summary for the Window into COP digests is to be well-informed about COP happenings, narratives, actions, and failings. I read so many articles about the big announcements and progress, and then I read about how they’re actually just pledges, not action. I read about the innovative solutions happening in the Global South, and then I read some more about how they’re not getting funded with anywhere near the amount of capital they need. I read about closed door meetings. I read about inaccessibility. I read about false solutions and a lack of ambition.

As I prepared to leave our Airbnb for my first day on the ground this morning (attending a side event called the Climate Action Innovation Zone), I was overwhelmed. I had just finished all that reading for today’s digest, and I couldn’t shake this sad, deep feeling in my gut. Like even though I’m here, and we’re all here, doing what we can, we’re also part of the problem. Thoughts like, “It’s too big.” We can’t do it at the scale we need to.

And then I got up and I went to the Innovation Zone, and my entire mood shifted. And it’s because of the people I met. The people I connected with from around the world.

Someone from Moscow who works at a climate tech company. She sends her daughter to school in Dubai, and she’s worked in the business sector for more than 20 years. She believes that businesses have a role to play.

A young woman from Kenya who makes biochar, a material created from biomass waste that increases soil fertility and decreases drought. She was representing Kenya and Uganda, trying to build momentum for a community-based project that could help farmers in her region.

A man from Scotland who was passionate about waste management and providing services to communities on how to actually change their habits. He was advocating for all islands, from the Global North to the Global South, to decarbonize urban life and share their learnings. My favorite line? “The world is just one big island. And we’re all on it.”

As I settle down for the evening and prepare to enter the Blue Zone tomorrow, I’m ruminating on one thing that hasn’t left me since this morning.

The climate crisis is truly a connection crisis. An inability to talk to each other.

To move each other. To inspire the understanding of why a specific solution matters to one specific community, and why it doesn’t work for others. And it’s not our fault, but it also is entirely our fault. There’s so many factors at play on why climate change is hard to communicate about, and why it’s hard to understand one another in general. An inability to see the world, and each other, in all of the gray areas.

The climate crisis isn’t this or that. It’s all of the above. It’s every option from the solutions buffet, please, so we can phase out fossil fuels while also decarbonizing every part of our society. It’s holding leaders and businesses accountable, and giving land back to Indigenous communities. It’s scaling innovative solutions that involve tech, and agriculture, and education, while also pouring funding into communities getting ravaged by impacts.

I’m eager to connect with more people tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, until I fly out next week.

Selfishly, so I can feed the part of me that finds so much joy in connecting with people who care just as much as I do. Because I need joy to sustain this work. But I need the deep, sad feeling in my gut to ground me in how much losing this planet as we know it hurts; that I need to do something about it.

And collectively, so we can build a stronger climate movement and understanding, and make the world feel just a little bit smaller than it did the day before.

Lauren Boritzke Smith manages online audience engagement, communications and branding, marketing, and media outreach for Climate Generation’s programming, fundraising, and events. She was introduced to the climate justice movement through her interest in food access, public health, and stewarding plants – from reporting on food deserts, participating in WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), to advocating for the importance of diverse ecosystems. Lauren has bachelor’s degrees in Strategic Communications and English from UW-Madison, and approaches nonprofit communications and marketing with a community lens, bringing enthusiasm for the importance of art and story in building change and centering voices that are most impacted by the issue at hand. After college, Lauren served in AmeriCorps VISTA, building community outreach capacity and development strategies for a tutoring and creative writing nonprofit in St. Paul. In her free time, she enjoys traveling around to state and national parks with her husband and pup River, designing graphic art and pressing flowers, and playing the banjo.

The post The climate crisis is a connection crisis appeared first on Climate Generation.