COP27 Climate Summit: Here’s what you should watch

Health & Fitness Journal —

As world leaders gather in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt for the annual UN climate summit, researchers, advocates and the UN itself are warning that the world is still a long way from its goal of halting global warming and the worst consequences to prevent the climate crisis.

Over the next two weeks, negotiators from nearly 200 countries at COP27 will goad each other to step up their clean energy ambitions, as the average global temperature has already risen by 1.2 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution.

They will haggle to end the use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel that has been revived in some countries amid the war in Ukraine, and try to devise a system to channel money to help the world’s poorest countries , to recover from the devastating climate disasters.

But a spate of recent reports have made it clear that leaders are running out of time to carry out the major energy overhaul needed to keep the temperature above 1.5 degrees Celsius, which scientists have warned the planet will stay below got to.

Reports from the United Nations and the World Meteorological Association show that carbon and methane emissions will reach record levels in 2021, and the plans presented by countries to reduce these emissions are more than inadequate. Given current promises by countries, the Earth’s temperature will rise to between 2.1 and 2.9 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Ultimately, the world must almost halve its emissions from fossil fuels by 2030 to avoid 1.5 degrees, a frightening prospect for economies still heavily dependent on oil, natural gas and coal.

“No country has the right to commit crimes,” US climate chief John Kerry told reporters in October. “Scientists are telling us what’s happening now — the increasing extreme heat, the extreme weather, the fires, the flooding, the warming of the ocean, the melting of the ice, the extraordinary ways in which life is being severely affected by climate will become a crisis – will worsen if we do not approach this crisis in a uniform and future-oriented manner.”

Here are the key themes to follow at COP27 in Egypt.

Developing and industrialized countries have been wrestling with the concept of a “loss and damage” fund for years; the idea that countries doing the most damage with their outrageous planet-warming emissions should pay for poorer countries that have suffered the resulting climate catastrophes.

It was a sensitive issue because the wealthiest countries, including the US, do not want to appear culpable or legally liable to other nations for damages. Kerry, for example, has tiptoed around the issue, saying the US supports formal talks, but has given no indication of what solution the country would agree to.

Meanwhile, small island nations and others in the Global South are shouldering the impact of the climate crisis as devastating floods, intensifying storms and record-breaking heat waves wreak havoc.

The deadly floods in Pakistan this summer, which have killed more than 1,500 people, will surely be an example countries’ negotiators point to. And since September, more than two million people in Nigeria have been affected by the worst flooding in a decade. Right now, Nigerians are drinking, cooking and bathing in filthy floodwaters amid serious concerns about waterborne diseases.

Loss and Damage will have a place on the official COP27 agenda this year. But aside from countries committing to meeting and discussing what a potential loss and damage fund would look like, or if there should be one at all, it’s unclear what action will emerge from this year’s summit.

“Do we expect to have a fund at the end of the two weeks? I hope I would like to do it – but we will see how the parties achieve that,” Egypt’s chief climate negotiator, Ambassador Mohamed Nasr, recently told reporters.

Former White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy told Health & Fitness Journal she believes casualties and damage will be the main theme at this year’s UN climate summit, saying nations, including the US, face some tough questions about their plans to help developing countries that have already been hit hard by climate catastrophes.

“It just keeps getting pushed out,” McCarthy said. “In the short term, real accountability and concrete commitments are needed.”

People will be watching to see if the US and China can mend a broken relationship at the summit, a year after the two countries surprised the world by announcing they would work together on climate change.

The newfound collaboration collapsed this summer when China announced it was suspending climate talks with the US as part of a broader retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

Kerry recently said climate talks between the two countries are still on hold and are expected to remain so until China’s President Xi Jinping gives the green light. Kerry and others are watching whether China will deliver on its pledge last year to present a plan to cut its methane emissions, or update its emissions pledge.

The US and China are the world’s two largest emitters and their cooperation is important, particularly as it can spur other countries to act.

Aside from a potential loss and damage fund, there is the overarching issue of so-called global climate finance; a fund into which rich countries have pledged to push money to help developing countries transition to clean energy instead of growing their economies on fossil fuels.

The 2009 pledge was $100 billion a year, but the world has yet to fulfill the pledge. Some of the richest countries, including the US, UK, Canada and others, have consistently missed their allocation.

President Joe Biden pledged that the US would contribute $11 billion to the effort by 2024. But Biden’s motion must ultimately be approved by Congress and will likely get nowhere if Republicans gain control of Congress in the midterm elections.

The US is working on separate deals with countries like Vietnam, South Africa and Indonesia to get them to switch away from coal and towards renewable energy. And US officials often emphasize that they also want to mobilize private investment to help countries transition to renewable energy and deal with climate impacts.

COP27 is set to ignite countries on fossil fuel emissions and spark new ambitions on the climate crisis. However, reports show that we are still off course to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

A UN report examining countries’ recent pledges found the planet will warm between 2.1 and 2.9 degrees Celsius. Since the industrial revolution, the global average temperature has already risen by around 1.2 degrees.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, records were set last year for all three major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

There’s some encouraging news: Renewable energy and electric vehicle adoption are growing and are helping to offset increases in emissions from fossil fuels, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency.

But the overall picture from the reports shows that much more clean energy is needed, and it’s being made available quickly. Any fraction of a degree of global temperature rise will have serious consequences, said Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

“The energy transition is definitely doable, but we’re not on that path, and we’ve hesitated and wasted time,” Andersen told Health & Fitness Journal. “Every digit will count. Let’s not say, “We missed 1.5, so let’s settle for 2.” No. We need to understand that every digit that goes up will affect our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren much more.”

The clock is ticking differently: next year’s COP28 in Dubai will be the year when nations must take official stocktaking to see if the world is on track to meet the goals set out in the landmark Paris Agreement .

This story has been updated.