The world is still “on the brink of climate catastrophe” after the deal reached at the UN’s Cop27 climate summit on Sunday, with the biggest economies having to make new commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions greenhouse effect, climate experts and activists have warned.
The agreement reached in Sharm el-Sheikh in the early hours of Sunday morning, after a marathon final negotiating session that ran 40 hours past its deadline, was praised for offering poor countries for the first time assistance financial known as losses and damages. Rich governments will create a fund for the rescue and reconstruction of vulnerable areas hit by climate disaster, a key demand of developing countries during the last 30 years of climate talks.
But the result was widely seen as a setback for efforts to reduce carbon dioxide, after oil-producing countries and major emitters weakened and scrapped key commitments on greenhouse gases and phasing out fossil fuels.
Mary Robinson, chair of the Group of Former World Leaders, former president of Ireland and two-time UN climate envoy, said: “The world remains on the brink of climate catastrophe. Progress made [cutting emissions] it’s been too slow We are on the cusp of a clean energy world, but only if G20 leaders live up to their responsibilities, keep their word and strengthen their will. The responsibility rests with them.”
António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, warned: “Our planet is still in emergency. We need to drastically reduce emissions now, and that’s an issue that this cop didn’t address. The world still needs a giant leap in climate ambition.”
Attempts to strengthen the deal had been thwarted by oil-producing countries, said Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the 2015 Paris climate accord, now executive director of the European Climate Foundation. “The influence of the fossil fuel industry was found at every level,” he said. “This CoP has weakened the requirements for countries making new and more ambitious commitments [on cutting emissions]. the text [of the deal] it makes no mention of phasing out fossil fuels and makes little reference to the 1.5°C target.”
He blamed host country Egypt for letting its regional alliances influence the final decision, a claim strongly denied by the hosts. Next year’s conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COPC) will take place in Dubai, hosted by the United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s largest oil exporters.
Tubiana warned: “The Egyptian presidency produced a text that clearly protects the oil and gas petrostates and the fossil fuel industries. This trend cannot continue in the UAE next year.”
At the talks, nearly 200 countries agreed to create a loss and damage fund, which would pay to rescue and rebuild the physical and social infrastructure of countries devastated by extreme weather events, over the next year.
However, there is still no agreement on how much money should be paid in, by whom and on what basis. A key EU objective in the talks was to ensure that countries classified as developing in 1992 when the UNFCCC was signed – and therefore under no obligation to act on emissions or provide funds to help the others – are considered potential donors. These could include China, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, and Russia.
Under the final agreement, these countries can contribute on a voluntary basis.
John Kerry, the US presidential special envoy for climate, who tested positive for Covid on Friday night and spent the rest of the summit isolating himself in his hotel, set China in his sights in a statement after concluding the conference.
“Reducing emissions over time is a matter of mathematics, not ideology. That is why all nations have a stake in the decisions China makes in this critical decade,” he said. China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, as well as the world’s second largest economy , and is second only to the US in historical emissions accumulated since the industrial revolution.
“The US and China should be able to accelerate progress together, not only for our sake, but for the sake of future generations. And we all hope that China will live up to its global responsibility.” .
Paul Bledsoe, a former climate adviser in the Clinton White House, now at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington DC, said: “It is time for the United States to work with developing nations to pressure China, or climate protection will be impossible. China should be a climate pariah, along with Russia.”
A number of key commitments championed by the UK, which hosted last year’s Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, were withdrawn from the final deal, mainly at the urging of Saudi Arabia and other petro-states, although The Guardian understands that China, Russia and Brazil also played. a role in weakening some aspects.
These include a target for global emissions to peak in 2025, in line with the goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the safety threshold that was the focus of the Glasgow Climate Pact signed last year at Cop26.
Although the final text included a commitment to limit temperature rise to 1.5C, the language was considered weak and did not mark any progress on the outcome of Cop26 a year ago.
Alok Sharma, the UK’s Cop26 chairman, sacked as minister by Rishi Sunak, was visibly angry as the conference closed. “Those of us who came to Egypt to keep 1.5 degrees Celsius alive and to honor what we all agreed in Glasgow have had to fight endlessly to hold the line. We have had to fight to build on one of the successes key of Glasgow, the call to the parties to review and strengthen their [national plans on emissions].”
In Glasgow, in the final moments, China and India reduced their pledge to phase out coal to a phase-out of coal, a last-minute test that reduced Sharma to the brink of tears. At Cop27, it joined efforts to include a phase-out of all fossil fuels in the text, but in the final stages it was reduced to a mere repetition of Glasgow’s commitment to phase out coal.
Sharma listed weakened or lost commitments, stressing the table: “We joined with many parties to propose a series of measures that would have contributed to this. Emissions peak before 2025, as science tells us is necessary. Not in this text. Clear tracking of the coal phase-out. Not in this text. A commitment to phase out all fossil fuels. Not in this text. And the energy text, weakened in the last few minutes [to endorse “low-emissions energy”, which can be interpreted as a reference to gas].”
In the end the responsibility will be everyone’s, as Meena Raman of Third World Network, an adviser to developing countries, points out. “Given that the EU and Alok Sharma are disappointed that the fossil fuel phase-out is not in the text, we would like them to take the lead and revise their NDCs. [nationally determined contributions] and put on plans to phase them out of fossil fuels as a matter of urgency and halt the expansion of fossil fuels, including oil and gas. [It’s] It’s not enough to play to the gallery, but act if they really want to save the planet and not hide behind the net zero targets of 2050, which will reduce the remaining carbon budget by 1.5ºC.”
Sharma concluded: “I said in Glasgow that the 1.5C pulse was weak. Unfortunately, it is on life support.”