At a time when the world is busy with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and rising food and energy prices, Egypt wants to mobilize industrialized and polluting countries around COP27 , to be held in Africa.
The designated president of the COP27 Climate Summit, Sameh Shukri, said on Monday that he expects “more synergy and integration” of the private and business sector with governments for climate action.
Shukri stated that the objectives of the Egyptian government at COP27 are to “lower carbon emissions and guarantee financing for developing countries, among other issues that require synergy and integration between all parties involved in climate action, including the private sector and the business community.
The international community continues to reaffirm the objective of the 2015 Paris Agreement to contain global warming at +1.5ºC compared to the pre-industrial era, an objective that is difficult to achieve, since we are almost at +1.2ºC.
A level at which the catastrophic consequences of warming are already multiplying throughout the world, with droughts, floods, heat waves and mega-fires that especially affect the poorest countries and those least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, guilty of said heating.
These countries demand specific financing to compensate for the “losses and damages” suffered, a point that will be vigorously debated at COP27, since the richest, often big polluters, are very reluctant.
What is the COP?
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the annual summit held by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) where the more than 196 countries and the European Union that make up the parties meet.
The COPs are the sessions in which the countries that have ratified the United Nations conventions meet. The first was held in 1994.
When is COP27?
COP27 will be held between November 6 and 18, 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt , a city on the shores of the Red Sea.
conference agenda
Topics for the leaders’ roundtables to be held on November 7 and 8 will include green hydrogen development, water and food security, achieving a just energy transition to renewable energy, and vulnerable communities, Aboulmagd explained.
Egypt is working to put “loss and damage” — compensation to climate-vulnerable countries that are already suffering the consequences of extreme weather events — on the summit’s formal agenda.
At last year’s COP26, held in Glasgow, the United States and the European Union rejected calls for a fund to offset such losses.
The COP27 agenda will be decided in the first days of the summit, but on September 26, in one of the preparatory meetings, a provisional agenda was presented that includes issues related to ambition and the application of mitigation measures .
Adaptation-related issues are also expected to be addressed. In addition, the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage related to the Repercussions of Climate Change will be discussed.
An important part of the provisional agenda is dedicated to questions related to financing, which include the following points:
Matters related to the financing standing committee
- Orientation to the Green Fund for Climate
- Guidance to the Global Environment Facility
- Matters related to the Adaptation Fund
- New collective quantified climate finance goal
- Issues related to financing arrangements to deal with loss and damage.
Those who participate?
As of October 3, 90 heads of state had confirmed their attendance at the COP27 climate negotiations.
“We have received a large number of confirmations from all over the world, I think the last count was about 90 heads of state,” Wael Aboulmagd, special representative of the COP27 presidency, said then, without mentioning countries.
With information from AFP, EFE and Reuters
