The ‘achievements’ of COP27

‘The heart of implementation is everybody, everywhere in the world on every single day doing everything they possibly can to address the climate crisis’: Simon Sielle, UN climate Executive Secretary.

COP27 (Conference of Parties) was held in Egypt in November 2022. There were 35,000 participants from 200 countries.  However, 656 lobbyists from the oil and gas industries also attended and were the largest lobbying group.  Only 5-10% of those attending were negotiators.

The overall opinion on whether it was a success or failure is that there is still a gap between the rhetoric and action. There was no renewed sense of the urgency required to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Only 41 countries have targets to keep the critical 1.5C global warming limit while some countries are actually resisting this. There appears to be no increased ambition to decrease all fossil fuel use, not just coal

The most historic outcome was the agreement to establish a fund to compensate vulnerable nations for loss and damage as a result of climate disasters such as floods. There is a need to redirect some of the world’s wealth to assist poorer countries in making adaptations which would reduce the impact of these disasters. There are questions still to be answered as to how this fund is to be set up and who will pay into it. Noticeably China has agreed to pay despite it being a voluntary fund. This is seen as a major success of the Conference.

100 countries pledged to reduce deforestation by 30% and reduce methane emissions also by 30% but these promises are not binding.

It is clear that the world is not on course however to reduce gas emissions by 43% by 2030 to keep 1.5C within reach.

There was also no movement on the change needed to food systems which currently emit 1/3 of greenhouse gases, nor any attention to the need to secure healthier diets for all.

In summary I would suggest that COP is not proving fit for purpose, and that smaller group meetings would be better to be held in the countries that are more adversely effected by climate change. The next COP will be in the UAE - an oil producing country.

As we are likely to be near 1.5C by next year and on track for 2.7C, at which point there will be irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet, it has been suggested that we need to aim at real zero sooner than 2050.

This COP was meant to be an opportunity to show how implementation of pledges made in Paris were progressing but such progress seems to be seriously limited.

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