Sharm El-Sheikh: This year’s U.N. climate summit featured visits by world leaders, proposals by business leaders, and negotiations by nearly 200 nations about the future of global action on climate change. Here are some of the key takeaways from the two-week COP27 summit held in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh:
Fund For “Climate Justice”
After years of resistance from rich governments, nations for the first time agreed to set up a fund to provide payouts to developing countries that suffer “loss and damage” from climate-driven storms, floods, droughts and wildfires.
Despite being the standout success of the talks, it will likely take several years to hammer out the details over how the fund will be run, including how the money will be dispersed and which countries are likely to be eligible.
Also Read: Not Historical Polluter: India Blocks Attempt To Focus On Top 20 Emitters
Fossil Fuel Flow
The final COP27 deal drew criticism from some quarters for not doing more to rein in climate-damaging emissions, both by setting more ambitious national targets and by scaling back use of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.
While the deal text called for efforts to phase down use of unabated coal power and phase-out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, some countries had pushed to phase out, or at least phase down, all fossil fuels.
But from the opening speeches to the gaveling of the final deal, the use of fossil fuels was affirmed for the near future.
President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates – host of next year’s COP28 climate summit – said his country would continue to deliver oil and gas “for as long as the world is in need”.
Oil company CEOs were on hand at this year’s summit, after having been pushed to the margins at COP26. Natural gas chiefs were billing themselves as climate champions, despite gas companies having faced lawsuits in the United States over such claims.
Also Read: India Submits Long-Term Strategy To Achieve Net-Zero Target By 2070
Nevertheless, some electricity-poor nations in Africa argued for their right to develop their natural gas reserves, even as they face increasing climate impacts such as drought.
And fossil fuel phase-out clubs launched around last year’s summit in Glasgow were struggling to recruit new members amid this year’s energy crisis caused by the Ukraine war.
“Brazil Is Back”
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was greeted by roaring crowds as he declared “Brazil is back” in the global climate fight, and vowed to host COP30 in 2025 in the Amazon region.
The leftist leader made the Egypt climate summit his first visit abroad since winning Brazil’s presidential election last month against right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over mounting destruction of the rainforest and refused to hold the 2019 climate summit originally planned for Brazil.
On Monday, Brazil also joined Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo in launching a partnership to cooperate on forest preservation. The trilateral alliance was negotiated over a decade of on-off talks that continued even as the countries’ national forest policies and leaderships changed. They are expected to press rich nations to pay for forest preservation.
Also Read: Climate Justice Gets Harder As World Population Passes 8 Billion
U.S., China Relationship Rekindled
A critical precursor for the climate talks’ success happened far away from the Red Sea locale.
As the COP entered its second week, China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden met in Indonesia for the G20 where the heads of the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters agreed to restart cooperation on climate change after a months-long hiatus due to tensions over Taiwan.
China’s top climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua had previously told reporters that informal dialogue with John Kerry, his U.S counterpart and a “close friend for 25 years”, had continued.
Xie said on Nov. 19 that he expects to keep up direct cooperation on climate change with Kerry after the end of COP27 – and presumably after Kerry recovers from COVID.
Billions In Private Finance (But Not Trillions… Yet)
The world of finance has failed to provide enough money to help countries cut their carbon emissions and adapt their economies to the changes wrought by global warming, yet the COP27 talks suggest change is coming.
Among the steps likely to free up more cash is a plan to reform leading public lenders such as the World Bank so that they can take more risk and lend more money. By doing so, countries hope more private investors will join in.
Deals struck at the talks also give hope for faster action, chief among them a landmark deal between countries such as the United States and Japan, and private investors to help Indonesia shift away from coal-fired power generation more quickly.
Also Read: COP27: BASIC Countries Call Out Rich Nations’ ‘Double Standards’ At UN Climate Summit
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.
