Can the world expect real action on climate change from November’s COP27 talks in Egypt?
It is an opportunity for renewed commitment on mitigation and finance, and deciding on next steps for realising commitments on emissions targets. In a crucial meeting for tackling the climate crisis, almost 200 countries will come together in Egypt at the start of November for a “Conference of the Parties”, or COP27. You may remember hearing about COP26 in Glasgow about this time last year. It was often hailed as our “last best chance” to keep global warming under 1.5℃ this century. Advertisement Since then, emissions have reached record levels after the pandemic downturn. And this year alone, we’ve seen dozens of catastrophic disasters ranging from drought in the Horn of Africa to floods in Pakistan, South Africa and Australia, and wildfires and heatwaves in Europe, the United States, Mongolia and South America, among others. As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said this week: “On every climate front, the only solution is decisive action in solidarity. COP27 is the place for all countries […] to show they are in this fight and in it together.” So, as disasters intensify and war rages in Ukraine, what can we expect from this important summit? What happens at COP meetings? Conferences of the Parties are held under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and this year marks its 30th anniversary since it was established at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. COP27 will be held in Egypt’s resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. COPs allow the international community to decide on a fair allocation of responsibility for addressing climate change. That is, who should lead in emissions reduction, who should pay for transitioning to new forms of energy production and who should compensate those already feeling the effects of climate change. They also allow countries to agree on rules for meeting commitments, or processes to transfer funds and resources from wealthy countries to poorer ones. And they provide opportunities for sharing the latest climate change research. Just as importantly, COP meetings focus international attention on the climate crisis and responses to it. This creates pressure for countries to make new commitments or, at least, to play a constructive role in negotiations. Is COP27 less important than COP26? Sunita Narain @sunitanar Tragic. And we dare to talk about fixing food systems for climate change Irony just died. #CocaCola to sponsor #cop27 downtoearth.org.in Irony just died: Coca-Cola, among biggest global polluters, to sponsor CoP27 Activists and commentators have called Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of the world’s biggest climate summit a ‘greenwashing exercise’ The agreement allowed countries to make their own commitments, with the expectation these would be ratcheted up every five years. Glasgow was essentially a big test of whether the deal actually worked to increase commitments addressing climate change. Glasgow was also significant because it was the first COP since the US returned to the fold after the Trump administration’s withdrawal. By contrast, Sharm el-Sheikh is less a test of the agreement itself. It is more an opportunity for renewed commitment on mitigation and finance, and deciding on next steps for realising these commitments. But there is still plenty at stake, and a few crucial points of debate loom. Will more countries make new commitments? The first big test for COP27 will be whether countries make new emissions reduction commitments. At Glasgow, more than 100 nations committed to new emissions reduction targets. But these commitments still fell well short of what’s needed to reach the goals agreed at Paris. Instead of providing a pathway to limit global warming to 1.5℃ or 2℃, Glasgow commitments were shown to put the world on track for a 2.4℃ increase by the end of the century. This would endanger people and ecosystems throughout the world. And that’s assuming those countries even meet the targets. Despite this, in the lead up to COP27 fewer than 20 countries have provided updates, and only a handful of these have outlined new emissions reduction targets or net-zero commitments. Of these, only India and Australia are among emitters producing more than 1% of global carbon dioxide emissions. In some ways, COP27 is less significant than COP26. That meeting, the first for two years after a Covid-19 delay, was the deadline for countries to commit new emissions reduction targets under the rules of the 2015 Paris Agreement.