An Oceanic Trade Off

The web of life is not guaranteed. It has changed many times over across geological time. One of the main predictors of those changes has been concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So, of course, we humans appear to be pumping as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as is humanely possible. Without any intention to stop.

If an alien were to come to earth, and be presented with a graph plotting concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere against the number of COP meetings held, he would rationally propose the hypothesis that COP meetings cause concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere to go up.
He would be wrong, but not so far off the mark!

The COP meetings function to ease eco-anxiety, by giving us an excuse to assume people (somewhere!) are going about solving Our Human Predicament.
However, this is not so. Nor is Mother Earth going to keep us nice and safe, and ensure human existence will continue for an indefinitely long period of time into the future.

Our oceans are acting like buffers, preventing the worst consequences of our insisting to emit as much CO2 as possible.
But that buffering capacity will soon run out, as has been the case in the past. We humans will then be hit with the full force of our stupidity.
But it doesn't have to be that way. We can predict these unpredictable changes, and reorient ourselves now to prevent some of the worst scenarios from making themselves manifest in the future.