Participants talk to each other during a break in the closing ceremony at the UN Climate Summit COP27 (Photo: Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Cover Participants talk to each other during a break in the closing ceremony at the UN Climate Summit COP27 (Photo: Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images)

The Singaporean social entrepreneur shares her first-hand experience of the optimism and paradoxes of the major climate conference

“It is not until the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned that we will realise that we cannot eat money.”

I was no older than 17 when I saw this Native American quote engraved on a decorative wooden tile at the Singapore Zoo. It popped into my head time and time again when I was in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt attending the inaugural Singapore Pavilion at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) as a panellist. 

It first came to my mind when I was being driven through perfectly manicured boulevards dotted with neon palm trees, set against a backdrop of alternating souvenir shops and sprawling resorts with outlandish names like Royal Albatross, Rixos or Charmillion on what should have been barren desert.

It came to me when I realised that 44,000 attendees had flown into Egypt to make this the second most attended COP in history, on planes that guzzle 14,400 litres of fuel per hour.

I thought about it again when I saw fridges fully stocked with products from Coca-Cola, which is both the world’s worst plastic polluter and a sponsor of the world’s largest climate conference. 

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Above The writer, Vanessa Paranjothy, (second from left) with other participants of the panel titled “Power of women in developing solutions for a more sustainable world”, including (from left) Elaine Cheung, Singapore minister Grace Fu (centre), fellow Gen.T honouree Marie Cheong and Audrey Yu (Photo: Vanessa Paranjothy)

It also came to me when I was reading speculations that 400 private jets had made their way into this little desert outpost at the Southernmost tip of the Sinai Peninsula.

But perhaps, it was sitting through the long negotiations that were the essence of the conference that the full impact of the quote hit me. 

One negotiation on if there should be targeted help for the female population in a climate crisis that disproportionately impacts them almost stalled as an aggrieved party thought the proposal was “not doing enough for women and girls”. 

Another negotiation saw small islands and developing nations demand justice in the form of the US$100 billion in climate funding promised to them 13 years ago at COP15, only to be asked for empathy and time from one of their developed counterparts. 

In all these moments, I sat wondering, how many more trees need to be cut down, fish have to disappear and streams poisoned before we realise what the Cree people knew so long ago—that we cannot eat money?

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Above Paranjothy during the panel discussion (Photo: Vanessa Paranjothy)

While I may sound doom and gloom, I must articulate that it is more important that these meetings about the climate emergency happen than not. 

COP27 marks 30 years since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was enacted. It was also symbolic that COP27 this year was held in Africa and was appropriately themed “Together for Implementation”. Indeed, we must start working together and we must start implementing on everything from mitigation to adaptation to climate financing to loss and damage. We must also do a global stocktake of where we stand in relation to where we need to be.

But before we do any of that, I wonder if what we need most desperately is a change in how COP in its present form is conducted. 

Make no mistake—COP is a much-needed opportunity for negotiators, ministers, scientists, world leaders and the media to convene and discuss how to most effectively tackle the climate emergency. And it is crucial that this happens in person.

I heard scientists exchange ideas about how ice melts differently in various parts of the Arctic and Antarctic. I heard them share research on tiger sharks being used to survey the health of seagrass meadows, which can potentially absorb more carbon than rainforests on land. I heard them express delight about a seaweed farm in Indonesia that harvests carbon at rates similar to that of mangrove forests.

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Would moving away from business-as-usual help to underscore the urgency of the issue and inspire real and meaningful progress towards net zero?

- Vanessa Paranjothy -

I saw Mia Motley and Al Gore demand real, long-term, systemic change, which reverberated like battle cries through not just the plenary room, but also on social media reels and among the crowd over the two weeks at COP that followed. 

I witnessed negotiators work tirelessly into the late hours of the night, at the negotiation tables and via backchannels, to move on vital clauses. 

I observed people walking away with real learnings on how to deploy better water management technology and more sustainable food development policies from Singapore’s inaugural pavilion.

I, myself, have benefited from experiencing COP27 first-hand in person. As part of Gender Day on November 14, I sat on a panel titled the “Power of women in developing solutions for a more sustainable world” alongside Grace Fu, Singapore’s Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, where I learned how our greater participation could be an integral part of the solution to the climate crisis.

So for all of the aforementioned reasons, it is crucial that COP happens in person. But COP27 having been my first COP experience, I left with several unanswered questions: 

Do the presence of non-profits, businesses, international organisations, special interest groups and individual observers invited for transparency, vibrancy and perspective do more harm than good? They, too, are integral to solving the issue, but is there a more climate-friendly way to do this?

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Participants in a demonstration at the UN Climate Summit COP27 hold placards and advocate for the 1.5 degree Celsius global temperature rise target (Photo: Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Above Participants in a demonstration at the UN Climate Summit COP27 hold placards and advocate for the 1.5 degree Celsius global temperature rise target (Photo: Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Is the bidding process for future COP hosts a distraction from the vital and hard work at the centre? Should we consider a permanent encampment for the indispensable aspects of the conference while keeping most of the peripheral activities virtual? And if so, where will this encampment be based and how will we pick a single location? 

Would moving away from business-as-usual help to underscore the urgency of the issue and inspire real and meaningful progress towards net zero? 

I did not have any good or easy answers to these questions as they ran through my mind while I was waiting to board my flight home to Singapore—and I still don’t. 

And as I recall two quotes from the UN’s secretary-general Antonio Gutierrez—“The world is on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator” and “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish”—I only hope that we pick slamming our foot on the brakes and cooperation, and that we pick them now. 

There’s no better place to start than by contemplating the trees, fish and streams we take for granted, and by reviewing how we can do COP better with each iteration.


Vanessa Paranjothy is the co-founder of Freedom Cups, a social enterprise that aims to destigmatise period poverty while providing every girl and woman access to a menstrual cup. See more honourees from the Social Entrepreneurship category of the Gen.T List.

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