The Egyptian Presidency has said that the COP27 global climate summit in Egypt will continue on Saturday, extending the time for negotiations to give participants more time to reach a consensus on contentious issues like how to compensate the world’s poorest nations for the harm caused by climate change and how quickly greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced.
Late on Thursday, the European Union made an effort to end the impasse by proposing a new fund for loss and damage—the word used to describe the cost of climate change impacts—in exchange for increased ambition to reduce emissions.
The Egyptian presidency released a draft deal early on Friday morning, but it didn’t make a strong case for the first portion and fell short on the second.
Read also: UN donates $10.5 million to help flood victims in Nigeria
In order to reach a last-ditch solution, delegates anticipate that the talks in Sharm El-Sheikh, a resort on the Red Sea, will continue well into the night.
The EU proposal would include a pledge to assess debt and restructure the multilateral development banks in addition to a commitment to quickly establish a new loss and damage response fund with details worked out over the next year.
The block wants major emitters from developing countries, like China, to contribute. Countries would promise to phase down all fossil fuels, not just coal, as was stated in the Glasgow Climate Pact last year, and to peak world emissions by 2025.
Story was adapted from Bloomberg.
