As global leaders and environmental activists gathered in Egypt for this year’s climate summit, there are calls for more commitment to tackling climate change problems to save the world from the highway to climate hell. However, many still fear that the summit may not achieve much because of knotty questions over who will offset compensations for loss and damage that the most vulnerable countries are seeking from the world’s biggest polluters; while several key world leaders from China, Russia and India may not grace the important event due to deep-seated political divisions. Associate Editor ADEKUNLE YUSUF writes with agency reports
The ongoing International Convention Centre during the COP27 climate summit, which began on Sunday, has gifted the world-famous resort of Sharm el Sheikh, an Egyptian resort town between the desert of the Sinai Peninsula and the Red Sea, another moment in the spotlight. Perhaps because of its unique sheltered sandy beaches, clear waters and coral reefs, Sharm El Sheikh is best known outside Egypt as a beach haven for tourists – Germans, British and, lately, Ukrainians and Russians – who love to get sunburned along the calm waters and rich coral reefs of the Red Sea.
However, at least for the next two weeks, the all-inclusive resorts is instead housing tens of thousands of world leaders, climate negotiators, environmental activists and other attendees of COP27, the annual United Nations climate summit. To give conferees an experience to remember for a long time, trees have been planted and plastic bags banned in an effort to “green” the city that has earned the moniker “City of Peace, Mangroves and Sustainability.”
At the international climate summit (COP27) gets underway amid compounding crises of war and economic instability, it is an open secret that world leaders will have some stormy sessions over how to address a key and fundamental question: whether or not rich and industrialised nations will pay for climate-related losses and damage. That has often been a sore point in previous meetings.
‘We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,’ UN Secretary-General
As presidents, prime ministers and activists from around the globe gathered yesterday to exchange ideas and tell the world what they have done and are still doing to tackle climate change, the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, delivered a characteristically dire message about the rapidly-warming planet. “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,” he warned.
While setting the tone for the annual United Nations-led international climate talks, Guterres talked about the accumulating threats of war, warming and economic crisis taking a debilitating toll on every continent, hitting the world’s most vulnerable people the hardest. “We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing,” Mr. Guterres said in his opening remarks at the summit where dozens of world leaders are scheduled to deliver brief addresses.
The talks opened under the shadow of grim new data, as the World Meteorological Organisation said on Sunday that the planet had likely witnessed its warmest eight years on record, including every year since countries came together in 2015 to create the landmark Paris agreement. That was aimed at pivoting the global economy away from fossil fuels and slowing down warming.
However, the biggest fault line of this year’s talks is the question of what rich, industrialised countries — who account for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions — owe to those bearing the brunt of climate hazards. On that issue alone, some are optimistic that there was a small breakthrough on Sunday on the contentious issue of who will pay for the irreversible damage that climate change is wreaking on the world’s most vulnerable.
The event is the 27th session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations convention, which is why it’s known as COP27. As at the last count, organisers said over 44,000 people have registered to attend, including representatives of governments, businesses, and civil society groups. The talks come at the end of a year that has seen extraordinary heat waves across the northern hemisphere, catastrophic flooding in Pakistan and Nigeria, and a punishing drought in China. According to a list posted by the United Nations, 110 heads of state and government are expected to address the conference, a larger number than at many previous climate conferences. Of those, just seven are women.
Activists call for a ‘fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty’ to end oil, gas and coal use
Environmental activists at COP27 are calling for a “fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.” This, in essence, is asking governments to promise an end to all new oil, gas and coal projects. In reality, this is a tall request for governments that are consumed with a global energy crisis induced by the Russia/Ukraine war. But activists argued on Monday that the solution lies in promoting the development of wind, solar and other renewable power rather than relying on gas and oil.
Many also said they are worried that the world leaders scheduled to speak are really at the gathering to pay lip service to climate change; while sealing deals on the side-lines for more fossil-fuel-driven energy. “So-called leaders are flying in to show that they care, but all they care about is drinking champagne with C.E.O.s,” said Dominika Lasota, a Polish activist with the group Fridays for Future, the international movement that grew out a solo school strike by Greta Thunberg, the climate activist from Sweden, in 2018.
Other activists expressed concern that the gathering was already shaping up to be a disappointment, and they accused world leaders of not providing clear direction on urgent climate issues. “Unfortunately, the only way I can actually sum up the COP27 summit so far is using two words: poor start,” Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, a group that aims to mobilize climate action across the continent, said at a news conference. “We cannot have COP27 become a sham.”
Mr. Adow said he was dismayed that there appeared to be no defined outcome on the issue of whether richer countries that have contributed the most to climate change should pay compensation to poorer countries that have been most affected. That issue, known as funding for “loss and damage,” is included on the conference’s formal agenda for the first time, but activists said the conversations were not focused enough on how such a policy would be carried out. Tasneem Essop, the executive director of Climate Action Network International, a network of more than 1,300 environmental groups, said at the same news conference that richer countries had an obligation to support poorer ones. “A COP in Africa has to deliver for the most vulnerable in Africa and across the world,” she said.
Compensation for ‘loss and damage’ may be stalemated
A treaty to end coal, oil and gas use is not on the agenda at the conference; in fact, it has never been a direct topic of discussion at these climate summits. Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy for Climate Action Network, an international coalition of environmental groups, said that nations needed “a global framework to talk about fossil fuels.” Last year, at a summit in Glasgow, Scotland, nations agreed for the first time to put the phrase “fossil fuels” into a U.N. climate declaration. There was also a dispute at that summit about whether nations would agree to phase fossil fuels “out” or merely “down.” In the end, “down” won.
The most vulnerable countries are seeking ‘loss and damage’ compensation from the biggest polluters. Year after year, calls have steadily grown louder for industrialised nations responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions already heating up the planet to own up to the problem — and pay for the damage.
Known by the term “loss and damage” — sterile code words crafted to avoid blame — such funding would be separate from money to help poor countries adapt to a changing climate, its proponents have argued. Loss and damage, they insist, is not charity — it’s what’s due. At this year’s COP27 summit, for the first time, “funding arrangements” for loss and damage are included on the formal agenda, overcoming longstanding objections from the United States and the European Union. “We are pleased that the parties were able to agree on an agenda item related to loss and damage,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson was quoted to have said on Sunday.
“Damage,” which refers to the destruction of physical things like roads, homes and bridges, is relatively easy to quantify. “Loss” refers to economic impacts: lost work hours because of extreme heat, for instance, or lost agricultural revenues because rising sea levels flood paddy fields with salt water, or lost tourism revenues because of a hurricane. That is harder to quantify. Estimates of the amount of money required vary widely, from $290 billion to $580 billion a year by 2030, rising to $1.7 trillion by 2050, according to one study.
Loss and damage was first championed by countries in the Pacific Ocean, and then embraced by a widening group of developing world countries. All the while, the real losses and damages kept piling up. Storms washed away crops. Droughts turned farmland to desert. Scientists got better at pinpointing the role of the warming planet in extreme weather. As negotiators met at the climate summit in 2013 in Warsaw, Super Typhoon Haiyan wiped away homes and farms and killed more than 6,000 people in Southeast Asia.
In 2015, loss and damage was acknowledged in the Paris accord, the agreement among nations to jointly work to limit global warming, but not before the United States — historically the largest emitter of greenhouse gases — included specific language ruling out the prospect of liability and compensation. A breakthrough came at the Madrid climate summit in 2019: an agreement to set up a technical assistance program. So far that consists of a website but no staff or funding. At last year’s COP26 summit in Scotland, the United States signed a statement agreeing to “increase resources” for loss and damage, without committing to anything more specific. Then came record flooding in Pakistan last month, leaving what the World Bank estimated to be $30 billion in economic losses.
The issue represents the biggest fight at this year’s gathering, and even though it is finally on the formal agenda, the issue is far from settled: There’s no agreement on whether to set up a pot of money — and certainly no money yet. “Space has been created for discussion,” said Simon Stiell, the head of the United Nations climate change agency, which is leading these talks.
Can Washington, Beijing and others work together to stop the world from ‘highway to climate hell’?
As world leaders gathered in Egypt to confront climate change, this is taking place at a moment of colliding crises: a war in Europe that has upended energy markets, rising global inflation, deep political divisions in many countries and tension between the world’s two greatest polluters, China and the United States. Many believe the prevailing conditions don’t bode well for a mission that demands cooperation among nations to bring down the pollution from burning oil, gas and coal that is warming the planet. The United States, which for the first time is attending United Nations negotiations with a climate plan that is backed by the force of law, will try to reassert itself as a leader in the fight to keep temperatures from rising to catastrophic levels. But while the legislation may mend America’s tattered reputation after former President Donald Trump halted climate action for years, more is needed to meet its commitments under the 2015 Paris agreement to constrain global warming. And the law barely squeaked through a bitterly divided Congress.
In addition, much of climate progress hinges on China, which now pumps the most greenhouse gases of any country into the atmosphere — an output that is not expected to peak for several more years. John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, emerged from last year’s summit with his Chinese counterpart to announce the two countries would work together to cut fossil fuel pollution this decade. But a year later, there is distance between the two as relations between the United States and China have sunk to their lowest point in decades amid economic competition, tensions over Taiwan and differences over Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Anyway, the United Nations scribe has called on China and the United States — the world’s two biggest polluters — to cooperate in addressing climate change, saying that the nations had “a particular responsibility to join efforts.” “We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing. We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,” Guterres said. He acknowledged other steep challenges that the world faces, including the war between Russia and Ukraine, but said that climate change was of another order. “It is unacceptable, outrageous and self-defeating to put it on the back burner,” he said.
Mr. Guterres also had a message for India and China, although he did not name them. Days before leaders of the Group of 20 major economies meet, with India chairing the gathering, he said: “All G20 countries must accelerate their transition now — in this decade.” “Developed countries must take the lead,” he added, signalling that historic polluters have a different responsibility. “But emerging economies are also critical to bending the global emissions curve.”
In his own opening remarks, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, which is hosting the conference, called on leaders to act with urgency to meet their commitments. “There is no time to slip back. There is no space for hesitation,” he said. “For the sake of future generations, here and now we are facing a unique historical moment, a last chance to meet our responsibilities.”
Why some influential world leaders may boycott COP27?
The leaders of some of history’s largest polluters are slated to speak, including the president of the European Union, Ursula Von der Leyen, and Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak. Both have ambitious targets to reduce emissions of planet-warming gases. Mohamed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, is also scheduled to make an address, though his kingdom has no plans to slow down the exploitation of fossil fuels.
President Biden is due to arrive late this week, after the midterm elections in the United States. Several key world leaders will not be in attendance at a convention centre on the shores of the Red Sea: Xi Jinping of China, the world’s largest emitter, nor Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, whose emissions are expected to grow sharply alongside its economy. Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, whose war on Ukraine is financed by the country’s fossil fuel riches, is not coming either. But Russia’s military aggression and the global energy and food crisis it has unleashed loom large. Without naming any countries, Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, urged that the nations of the world not let “political tensions” get in the way of addressing climate crisis. “We need to prove the contrary,” he told delegates at the opening ceremony on Sunday. “Climate change and its impacts are existential,” he added.
COP27 and its lofty aims
For two weeks, as nations struggle to cut greenhouse gas emissions amid a global energy crisis, war in Europe and rising inflation, there are high hopes, especially on the side of the most vulnerable parts of the world. What does COP stand for? COP stands for Conference of the Parties, with “parties” referring to the 197 nations that agreed to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. The 197 parties, including the United States, ratified the treaty to address “dangerous human interference with the climate system” and stabilise levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. The U.N. climate body convenes those governments once a year to discuss how to jointly address climate change. This is the 27th time countries have gathered under the convention — hence, COP27.
At last year’s summit in Scotland, countries agreed they must immediately do more to prevent a dangerous rise in global temperatures. But fast action has not materialised and the consequences of climate change, including deadly floods in Pakistan and Nigeria, drought in the United States, famine in Africa and heat waves across Europe, are issues requiring sincerity of purpose – a rare commodity among world’s leaders – to address.