The 28th. Conference under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) will take place from November 30 to December 12, in Dubai.

The urgency of responding to environmental problems and the clash of interests at stake have given the COPs increased importance, which, however, has not prevented insufficiency in establishing global reduction targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

In successive COPs, the efforts of the most developed capitalist countries to “try to pass the buck”, level responsibilities between countries, avoid applying the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility” and impose mechanisms of capital accumulation and appropriation of resources, have been obvious.

But forms of articulation by developing countries, which demand to have a voice on climate change, focused on their needs, have also been more visible. They affirm the need for a fair energy transition, which safeguards accessibility to affordable energy and ensures energy security and socio-economic development.

If at COP 27 the fundamental issue was the creation of a “loss and damage” fund, it was possible to include in the conclusions the establishment of a compensation fund for countries affected by extreme climatic phenomena, with some resistance from developed countries. In the coming United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP28) the fundamental issue will be clarification on its operation and funding. Countries like the US rely on their management of the World Bank (whose president is appointed by the US itself), many developing countries demand that its management be carried out by an independent fund, which can define its rules, or within the scope of an agency of the United Nations.

The fund's administrative mechanisms cannot prevent developing nations, more vulnerable to climate change, from obtaining direct funding, or from being forced to accept disadvantageous rules, which points to the need to counter the implementation of mechanisms for transferring funds to the financial system at the expense of the development of countries.

It's time to change environmental policy.

It's time to develop a policy that rejects the mechanisms to revitalise capital accumulation, that rejects the taxation of individual behaviours and new/old forms of appropriation of natural resources; that reverses the lack of public investment, with the weakening of public structures and with advances in the commodification of nature and the financialization of environmental policies; that invests in public control of strategic sectors, as a guarantee that the energy and technological transition processes are untethered from the interests of big capital; that demands the promotion of sustainable mobility policies, that attribute centrality to public transport; that values local production and consumption and the implementation of measures that shorten and rationalise production and distribution chains, recognising each country and each people's right to produce and to sovereignty in essential areas, such as food.

It's time to change environmental policy by ensuring:

- public control of water, against the commercialisation of the waste sector;

- development of policies to combat waste and planned obsolescence;

- prevention of the effects of heat waves, prevention of pests, diseases and invasive species;

- protection of the coastline and against flooding;

- adaptation of urban environments, particularly with the integration of concepts of adaptation in urban planning policies;

- demand investment in scientific research;

- mobilisation in the fight against war, militarism and the arms industry, which are some of the most polluting phenomena worldwide.