Final Week Crucial for Climate Progress at COP27 Summit

This year’s COP27 is being held in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt from 6^th - 18th November.

COP, which stands for “Conference of Parties” is the main decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC is an agreement between 197 UN Parties to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would limit dangerous anthropogenic (human induced) interference for our climate system. 

At the annual gathering of COP, the decision-making body assesses the effects of measures introduced by UN Parties to limit climate change.

Around the 6^{th of} November delegates from nearly 200 countries arrived in the coastal town of Sharm El Sheik to grapple with how to implement their climate promises against the backdrop of an unprecedented energy crisis. The final week is a crucial one for COP27 as the decisions made will determine outcomes for the poorer countries hardest hit by the impact of climate change and whether we have any chance of slowing down global heating which will impact us all.

The conference began with a sobering warning from Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general who said that the world was on a “highway to climate hell”. He told world leaders at the opening of the summit that the planet was reaching a point where “climate chaos” was irreversible.

During the first week it was more bad news with report after report revealing how leaders have failed to act despite rising seas, melting sea ice and extreme weather events.

The doom-laden reports came to a head at the end of the week with the release of a major new report which showed global emissions remaining at record highs with no evidence they are slowing. The Global Carbon Brief outlined how there was a 50 per cent chance that global temperature rise will hit 1.5°C in less than a decade. If this vital threshold is breached, scientists say up to half the world's population could be exposed to life-threatening heat.

One of the major issues at COP27 is loss and damage. This refers to money to pay for the effects of climate change so devastating that countries cannot adapt to them. Examples include the record droughts threatening nearly 150 million people with severe hunger in Africa, and the record floods that hit Pakistan this September. The issue has now become so fraught that it delayed the start of COP27. Developing countries criticised the wealthier nations, who also tend to be the worse emitters, for not agreeing to establish a fund to help them. The issue was quickly added to the agenda at the UN's annual climate talks for the very first time.

At COP26 last year in Glasgow, high-income nations, including the United States and the European Union blocked a proposal for a loss and damage financing body, instead supporting a three-year dialogue for funding discussions. The discussion of a fund is a real breakthrough for this years conference and several European countries have agreed to contribute to the fund including the UK. However, the amounts pledged so far are drastically short of what is needed.

Though countries agreed to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels at COP26 in Glasgow last year, the pledges on emissions they came forward with were not enough to meet this goal. A further agreement was made to return to COP27 this year with strengthened commitments. However, only 24 countries have actually submitted new national plans on emissions to the UN in advance of COP27. It appears unlikely that enough progress will be made to meet the 1.5C goal at this conference but there is a small step forward with the UN estimating that the improved plans submitted will bring down temperatures by about 0.1C. Unless further commitments are made at this conference, we are still on course for a disastrous 2.5C of heating on current policies.

Since 2009, poor countries have been promised $100bn (£87bn) a year from 2020 to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather. This target has not yet been met.

Much of the money that goes to the developed world in climate finance is destined to help middle income countries with projects to cut emissions, such as wind and solar farms. Poorer countries need help with finding ways to adapt to the extreme weather they are already experiencing. They need help to regrow forests, build flood barriers and put in place early warning systems.  Only about a fifth of climate finance is currently for adaptation, and nations promised last year to double that.

The COP27 Presidency has launched the Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda in partnership with the High-Level Champions and the Marrakech Partnership, in response to the devastating impacts of climate change affecting vulnerable people all over the world. The Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda is a comprehensive, shared agenda to rally global action around 30 adaptation outcomes that are needed to address the adaptation gap and achieve a resilient world by 2030. This is another positive outcome for COP27 though the target of doubling adaptation finance will not be met yet this year.

The World Bank is not on the agenda of the UN climate summit as it is a completely separate institution to the UN. However, many world leaders are calling for reform for the bank which they say has failed to focus on the climate crisis and is not fit for purpose. Reform for the World Bank is looking far more likely, and the pressure brought to bear at Cop27 will be an important factor in achieving it.

Many African countries are sitting on large reserves of fossil fuels, and with gas prices soaring around the world there are many countries and oil and gas companies that would like to exploit it. Europe and Germany in particular have been heavily criticised for encouraging African countries to build more gas infrastructure as they seek to replace their Russian gas supplies since the invasion of Ukraine. A report last week said new liquefied gas production and facilities could see the world miss its 1.5 degree warming target. There will no doubt be movement on African gas at this COP but in which direction will it go?

The key aims for the conference include an increased global ambition on greenhouse gas reduction efforts to keep the temperature limits inscribed in the Paris agreement within reach, increased global efforts on adaptation and climate financing and making progress on supporting developing countries to tackle loss and damage. Good progress is being made in some areas while others remain complex.

Many nations this year will want to see progress on loss and damage in the summit’s final declaration. They will also want to see action on a pledge by developed countries to provide $100 billion a year to poorer countries to help them reduce emissions and prepare for climate change.