It was, in the end, a case of different strokes for different folks.
After two weeks of intensive discussions, climate negotiations ended in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, as negotiators from around the world finalized a modest deal to help control global warming and pay for the costs of a hotter Earth.
The Climate Change Conference (COP) is the biggest and most important annual climate-related conference on the planet. This year’s climate summit in Egypt was no exception.
Global leaders at the United Nation’s annual climate summit agreed poor countries suffering from the effects of climate change will get financial help from richer nations under a historic agreement. They however failed to reach an agreement to phase out fossil fuels after marathon talks were “stonewalled” by a number of oil-producing nations.
Here are major takeaways from the summit.
Historic ‘Loss and Damage’ Fund
In fraught negotiations which over-ran the deadline and took until Sunday morning to complete, almost 200 countries agreed to set up a fund to cover the “loss and damage” that “particularly vulnerable” nations are suffering from climate change.
Negotiators at the COP27 summit in Egypt agreed to set up the new structure by the time of the next annual summit in 2023; contributors and recipients will be determined by a committee of countries.
African and other developing world leaders were jubilant. Pakistan’s climate minister Sherry Rehman described it as “an investment in climate justice”.
Chile’s Environment Minister Maisi Rojas, who helped lead the group of negotiators who created the fund, called the agreement “historic.”
But she had mixed feelings about the meeting overall. “Remember, we are talking about loss and damage because we failed to reduce emissions,” she said after the marathon talks concluded early Sunday morning. “So it’s not really a reason to celebrate.”
UN secretary-general António Guterres praised the agreement but also voiced his discontent with the failure to address global warming targets.
“Our planet is still in the emergency room. We need to drastically reduce emissions now — and this is an issue this COP did not address,” he said.
“A fund for loss and damage is essential — but it’s not an answer if the climate crisis washes a small island state off the map — or turns an entire African country to desert,” Guterres added.
Silence on Fossil Fuels
The “loss and damage” fund might have been a compromise for the failure on moving the needle on fossil fuels and this was most evident in the language around emission reductions and reducing the use of polluting fossil fuels – known in the parlance of U.N. climate negotiations as “mitigation.”
Rather than agreeing on a deal to end the use of fossil fuel, the final agreement by negotiators included the need for “low-emission” energy — which would allow the continued production of fossil fuels when paired with carbon capture technology.
At COP26 summit just a year ago, nearly 200 countries made an unprecedented and historic pledge to speed up the end of fossil fuel subsidies and reduce the use of coal, after India pushed through an 11th hour intervention to weaken the language on coal.
Pledges at COP26 were expected to see Earth warm 2.4°C this century with a shared goals of 1.5°C and “well below” 2°C.
The EU climate chief Frans Timmermans said the result was “not enough of a step forward for people and the planet”.
“We should have done much more. Our citizens expect us to lead. That means far more rapidly reduced emissions,” he said.
Tale of Unfulfilled Promises
Wealthier countries said in 2009 that they would provide developing nations with $100 billion a year in financing by 2020 to help them limit their own greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change like more extreme floods and worsening drought.
The arrangement, called climate financing, is rooted in the fact that industrialized countries such as the United States have emitted most of the pollution heating the Earth, while poorer nations are bearing disproportionate harm caused by rising temperatures.
Despite those promises, the latest tally by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development shows developing countries received just $83.3 billion in 2020.
“Everyone should be expected to do better but countries were constrained by financial ability,” Egypt’s COP27 ambassador Wael Aboulmagd said.
Us & China Resume Climate Talks
Aside from the final agreement, the summit brought several other significant developments including the resumption of formal climate talks between the US and China – the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters.
After China froze climate negotiations between the two countries this summer, US President Joe Biden and China President Xi Jinping agreed to reestablish US-China communications when they met last week at the G20 summit in Bali, paving the way for Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua to meet again formally.
“Without China, even if the US is … moving towards a 1.5-degree program, … if we don’t have China, nobody else can make … that goal,” Kerry told CNN last week.
Venue for COP 28
The COP28 will be held in the United Arab Emirates, more specifically, Dubai from Nov. 30 2023 through Dec. 12 2023, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
The climate conference is slightly later in the year than COP27, which started on Nov. 6 and ends on Nov. 18. But this isn’t unusual, as the event usually takes place in the fall or early winter.
“We are grateful to the nations that have supported our bid to host the crucial event. As the land of opportunities and collaborations, we look forward to bringing the world together to explore effective solutions to the most pressing challenges our planet faces,” Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri , UAE’s minister of climate change wrote on Twitter.