COP27 Snafu | No progress at Sharm El-Sheikh

The 27th UNFCCC conference of parties (COP27) is underway at the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.

If there was any hope for a meaningful outcome for climate action at 27th UNFCCC conference of parties (COP27) at the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, it had already begun fading by the time the last delegate walked out of the venue on November 13 evening for an underserved break for the weekend.

The biggest ask at COP27 is climate finance, but all that is on offer so far is a dubious carbon credit scheme called ‘Energy Transition Accelerator’ by the United States climate envoy John Kerry that basically dumps the financial responsibility of the world’s largest polluting country on the private sector, encouraging them to shop for certified offset credits derived from clean energy projects in developing countries. Kerry emphasised that the plan is “not in lieu of any other financial commitments”, which is a typical Kerry hiding-behind-nothing statement.

The fact is if the US was to pay its “fair share” of the $100 billion climate finance target, after accounting for private-finance contributions, it should have given $39.9 billion. In reality, it only gave $7.6 billion (19 percent of its fair share) in 2020, the most recent year for which data is available according CarbonBrief. Last year an International Energy Agency report found that to reach the much touted ‘net zero’ by mid-century, the world will need to ramp clean energy spending up to more than $4 trillion annually by 2030. At COP27, the developed countries merely reiterated existing pledges that they are yet to meet in their statements in the opening week.

The other key demand at COP27, a finance facility for Loss and Damage, was included as an agenda item for the first time ever, after almost three decades of blocking and delaying by the developed world. Its adoption, however, came with certain caveats, mainly that the outcomes of the agenda item are based on co-operation and facilitation, and do not involve liability or compensation. COP27 president and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was clear that COP27 will only launch a process with a view to adopting a conclusive decision no later than 2024.

The initial euphoria on the adoption of the agenda item quickly died down as it was clear that this was nothing more than yet another tactic to delay response that is long overdue. For developing countries, already reeling under Climate Change-induced disasters, such as floods and droughts, the outcome on loss and damage funding facility was to determine the success of the summit.

Meanwhile, on November 12, in the meeting of parties with COP presidency, India cited the latest IPCC reports to emphasise that meeting the 1.5 or 2 degree Celsius temperature targets requires the phase-down of all fossil fuels, not just coal. This was clearly aimed at the European Parliament’s decision to classify some uses of gas as ‘green’.

India is calling for acceleration of the global transition towards clean energy while keeping in mind the national circumstances of individual countries. India said it also wanted the cover text to “express deep regret” that we continued to live in an unequal world with “enormous disparities in energy use, incomes and emissions”, and stressed that the basic principles of the global Climate Change architecture — common but differentiated responsibilities with respective capabilities (CBDR- RC ), equity, nationally determined nature of climate commitments under the Paris Agreement — needed to be strongly reflected in the cover text.

The others space that delegates are keeping an eye on is the progress on Mitigation Work programme (MWP), that is crucial for discussing nationally determined contributions (NDCs), the progress made on mitigation across countries, and will strongly link to the political decisions on climate action. It will be linked as well to the Global Stock Take next year. The mitigation work programme is focused on slashing emissions by 50 percent by 2030, as prescribed by the IPCC. But

the text is currently full of brackets, leaving much to be finalised. Timelines on when the programme should wrap up currently give four options — 2023, 2024, 2030, and until the emissions gap is closed.

Observers and negotiators from the global south have expressed serious concerns regarding the ability of the Egyptian COP presidency in ensuring real outcome in second week, losing what many have once again dubbed as the last real opportunity for collective action by counties to avert the climate crisis. More importantly, their will be complete loss of trust in the COP process that continues to perpetuate inequality.