Climate summits on a planet in crisis: The Wuthering Heights Effect
Rodrigo Lledó is Stop Ecocide International’s Americas Director. He is a lawyer and has a Master’s in Public Law and Constitutional Law, as well as a PhD in Law.
From the Stockholm Conference in 1972 to the recent COP 16 on Biodiversity which ended last February 28th, international meetings have become more of a ritual than a real solution to the environmental crisis.
Every year, political leaders, diplomats, scientists, activists and NGO representatives gather at new summits convened to curb global warming, biodiversity loss and the irreversible destruction of ecosystems. Twenty years after Stockholm, the Rio Summit in 1992 marked a new phase with the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was later strengthened by the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Agreement (2015). From then until the present day, there have been agreements and there have been disagreements.
The second part of COP 16 on Biodiversity concluded at the end of February. Originally held in Cali, Colombia, in October 2024, it ended there without agreement, requiring a resumption in Rome. This time, it did bear fruit on 28 February, albeit that consensus was reached at the last minute and only partially. The bone of contention, once again, was funding. Nevertheless, the first global plan for financing nature conservation has now finally been approved. This is great news, even if it comes more than fifty years too late.
The planet does not wait
Unfortunately, the environmental crisis will not wait for countries to agree on effective measures. Whilst delegates debate in air-conditioned rooms, global temperatures continue to rise and we continue to lose ecosystems and biodiversity, with serious consequences for our environment and ourselves: human lives are already being lost.
On 10 January 2025, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that 2024 was the warmest year on record, exceeding pre-industrial levels by about 1.55°C. This means that, in less than ten years, we have already broken one of the commitments of the 2015 Paris Agreement, under which states committed to make efforts to comply with the recommendation not to exceed 1.5°C global temperature. According to the WMO, the last nine years have been the warmest since records began, so this 2024 record is not the exception, but the confirmation of a trend.
The forest fires in California, in the Amazon and in southern Argentina, the floods in Valencia or the droughts in Africa: these are just new and recent examples of what scientists warned us about decades ago; of a climate crisis that is advancing without pause. Humanity seems to have taken a great detour, summit after summit, to return to the same starting point.
The other summits
This situation inevitably reminds me of Emily Brontë's novel, Wuthering Heights. In it, the darkest human passions - hatred, toxic love, envy, deceit and revenge - intertwine the fates of her characters, leading them to a tragic end. Similarly, at the climate summits, the base passions of humanity - selfishness, unbridled ambition, political short-sightedness, lack of empathy and greenwashing deceit - seem to hinder any meaningful progress. And, as in the novel, there seems to be only one possible solution: reconciliation. We must reconcile with ourselves with those around us and with the nature that embraces us and of which we are an inseparable part. Without it we cannot survive, but without us, it can. We must stop treating nature as an inexhaustible source of resources, and start making peace with it, as posited by the theme of the Cali summit.
I know personally that those who attend these summits do so with the best of intentions. Indeed, I have met some truly extraordinary people with whom I have had unforgettable conversations. However, the harsh reality is that the real decisions are not taken in these forums, but in other, more opaque and less accessible summits such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, or the G20 and G7 meetings, where the private interests of the most powerful corporations and the most influential governments take precedence over the common good. Meanwhile, the global commitments made in the name of humanity at official summits are elusive, partial and unambitious. It is difficult, almost utopian, to believe that such agreements will be fulfilled.
Ecocide as an international crime
A paradigm shift is urgently needed. We need global commitments to be translated into concrete actions, with effective accountability mechanisms. One hopeful proposal is the initiative led by Stop Ecocide International, which seeks to make ecocide - perfectly preventable large-scale environmental disasters - the fifth crime within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. This will not only be a crucial step towards holding accountable the decision-makers behind the devastation of our only planet, our common home, but also, and more importantly, it will be a step towards prevention. To achieve this, we need politicians to commit, businesses to understand the urgency of the climate and environmental emergency, and citizens around the world to keep calling for real change.
In September 2024, Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa officially presented a request to include ecocide as a new crime under the jurisdiction of the ICC, followed the subsequent month by the strong support of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which expressed its support for the proposal at the Cali summit.
The forthcoming COP 30, to be held in Belém do Pará, Brazil, is a unique opportunity to change course. It will be both a symbolic return, thirty-three years after the Rio Summit, to the origins that sowed hope for a sustainable future and an opportunity to show that humanity can learn from its mistakes. We cannot afford another Wuthering Heights, with no real agreements or concrete actions.
In Emily Brontë's novel, reconciliation came too late, but we still have time to reconcile with our common home. It is up to us. Our wonderful and unique planet needs an international law that truly protects it: a law against ecocide, that should be the realisation of a genuine and collective commitment to the future of humanity.