The UN’s COP27 climate summit kicked off on Sunday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt with more than 120 world leaders and conference delegates gathered to scale up ambition and begin implementing the promises already made towards tackling humanity’s greatest challenge.
The summit comes after a year of extreme weather disasters that have fuelled calls for wealthy industrialised nations to compensate poorer countries. Among other things, the conference is expected to build on the outcome of COP26 to deliver action on a vast array of issues which are critical to tackling the climate emergency; from urgently reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building resilience to adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change and delivering on the commitments to finance climate action across developing countries.
In the past few months, climate-induced catastrophes have killed thousands, displaced millions and cost billions in damages across the world. Massive floods have devastated swaths of Pakistan and Nigeria, droughts worsened in Africa and the western United States, cyclones whipped the Caribbean, and unprecedented heatwaves seared three continents.
It also comes in a fraught year marked by Russia’s war on Ukraine, an energy crunch, soaring inflation and the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic.
But its president and Egyptian Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, had already urged leaders to not let food and energy crises related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine get in the way of action on climate change.
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“It is inherent in us all in Sharm el-Sheikh to demonstrate our recognition of the magnitude of the challenges we face and our steadfast resolve to overcome them.”
Like never before, the COP27 summit will focus on money — a major sticking point that has soured relations between countries that got rich burning fossil fuels and the poorer ones suffering from the worst consequences of climate change.
Developing nations have “high expectations” for the creation of a dedicated funding facility to cover “loss and damage”, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said on Friday.
Expectations
Addressing delegates gathered in the main plenary room of the Tonino Lamborghini International Convention Centre on Sunday, the new Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Convention, (UNFCCC) Simon Stiell said, “Today a new era begins – and we begin to do things differently. Paris gave us the agreement. Katowice and Glasgow gave us the plan. Sharm el-Sheik shifts us to implementation. No one can be a mere passenger on this journey. This is the signal that times have changed,”
He said that leaders –be they Presidents, Prime Ministers or CEOs – would be held to account for promises they made last year in Glasgow“because our policies, our businesses, our infrastructure, our actions, be they personal or public, must be aligned with the Paris Agreement and with the [UN Climate] Convention”.
The Global Climate Report 2022
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent a video message to the conference in which he called the State of the Global Climate Report 2022 a “chronicle of climate chaos”.
The UN released a report on Sunday in which it said that the past eight years were on track to be the warmest on record. In it, scientists estimated that global temperatures have now risen by 1.15C since pre-industrial times and said the latest eight years were on track to be the warmest on record.
The report also warned of the other wide-ranging impacts of climate change, including the acceleration of sea level rise, record glacier mass losses and record-breaking heatwaves.
Mr Guterres said that considering these findings, COP27 must be the place for urgent and credible climate action.
Deliver what has been promised
Acknowledging the current complex geopolitical situation, Stiell said that COP27 is an opportunity to create a safe political space, shielded from whatever is going on “out there”, to work and deliver world change.
“Here in Sharm el-Sheikh, we have a duty to speed up our international efforts to turn words into actions”, he emphasized.
The UNFCCC Executive Secretary underlined three critical lines of action for the Conference:
Demonstrate a transformation shift to implementation by putting negotiations into concrete actions.
Cement progress on the critical workstreams – mitigation, adaptation, finance and crucially – loss and damage.
Enhance the delivery of the principles of transparency and accountability throughout the process.
No backsliding allowed
Mr. Stiell also said that 29 countries have now come forward with tightened national climate plans since COP26, five more since the publication of last week’s UNFCCC NDC Synthesis report, but still not a majority.
“So here I am now, looking out at 170 countries that are due to be revisiting and strengthening their national pledges this year,” he said, reminding delegates that last year the Glasgow Climate Pact was agreed upon at COP26, and he expected them not to rescind their word.
“Stick to your commitments. Build on them here in Egypt. I will not be a custodian of back-sliding,” he said.
Loss and damage
On the opening day of the summit, loss and damage’, an item that was still uncertain ahead of the conference, finally made it into the agenda after being put forward by negotiators from the Group of 77 and China (which essentially includes all developing nations) and after extensive discussions among the 194 parties to the UN Climate Convention.
Through extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones, desertification and rising sea levels, climate change has caused costly damage to countries and because the intensification of these otherwise “natural disasters” is being caused by the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, mostly by rich industrialized countries, developing countries – often the most affected – have long argued that they should receive compensation.
The issue of these payments, known as “loss and damage” now will be a major topic of discussion at COP27.
Egypt seeks implementation
On Sunday, COP27 President, Sameh Shoukry also called on delegates to scale up their ambition and begin implementing the promises already made.
“Moving from negotiations and pledges to an era of implementation is a priority,” he said, later commending the countries which have already shared updated national climate plans.
Mr. Shoukry added that the $100 billion promised for adaptation by developed countries to developing countries should be delivered, and finance must be also at the centre of discussion.
“The negotiations [during the next two weeks] will hopefully be fruitful. I urge all of you to listen carefully and commit to implementation and to turn political commitments into agreements and understandings and texts and resolutions that we can all implement,” he underscored.
He also warned that “zero-sum games will have no winners” and that the implications of the negotiations will affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world suffering the impact of climate change.
“We cannot afford any negligence or shortcomings; we cannot threaten the future of upcoming generations”, he emphasised.
On Monday, there will be a World Leaders’ Summit, which will have heads of state and government deliver five-minute addresses outlining what they want from the meeting.
During the summit, UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak is expected to urge world leaders to move “further and faster” in transitioning to renewable energy. He will also tell leaders not to “backslide” on commitments made at last year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow.
Once they depart, conference delegates will get down to the business of negotiation.
Story was adapted from UN News.
