image source,Getty Images
The United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27 will be held in the coastal city of Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt in November 2022.
From 6 to 18 November 2022, Egypt invited heads of state, ministers and negotiators, as well as climate activists, mayors, civil society representatives and CEOs, to its coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh for COP27.
What does this meeting have to do with each of us?
COP27 is an annual meeting under the leadership of the United Nations to achieve the goals of the landmark Paris Agreement, an issue that concerns the common future of all mankind.
In order to cope with global climate change, 197 countries adopted the Paris Agreement at the COP21 meeting held in Paris on December 12, 2015, aiming to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and limit the global temperature increase in this century to within 2°C. At the same time, measures to further limit the temperature increase to 1.5℃ are sought.
This agreement came into force on November 4, 2016 and is a legally binding international treaty. Currently, a total of 193 contracting parties (192 countries plus the EU) have formally joined the Paris Agreement.
Although the “Paris Agreement” is an international agreement based on science, it affects various economic issues such as energy, finance, environmental protection, and industry, as well as international relations and real-world political issues. Each year’s COP meeting will focus on the issues that people in various countries and industries are concerned about.
This year’s COP27 has many highlights, of which the following four are both independent and interrelated, and deserve attention:
1. Tension in international relations and energy crisis
The 2021 Glasgow COP26 climate conference also led to a number of multilateral agreements between different groups of countries, including commitments to cut methane emissions, stop deforestation, and stop financing overseas fossil energy projects.
After the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the supply of traditional international energy sources such as oil and natural gas was suddenly tight, and the threat of food and economic crises increased. These have had a great impact on the original global emission reduction process.
For ordinary people, the inflation rate has risen sharply after the Russian-Ukrainian war, and energy, food and supply chain security have become major concerns in their daily lives.
image source,Getty Images
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been subject to export sanctions, and global oil and gas prices have skyrocketed. The tight supply of natural gas affects companies’ transition to clean energy.
While some governments are trying to use the crisis to accelerate the pace of carbon reduction and energy efficiency, others have increased the search for new sources of fossil fuels to ensure short-term energy security.
For example, major manufacturing countries such as China and Germany were all leaders in the development of new energy in the world. However, in order to maintain the needs of the economy and people’s livelihood, while continuing to develop new energy fields, they have restored the most polluting petrochemical energy coal. use.
China and the United States are the world‘s two largest emitters. China has suspended official dialogue with the United States on climate change because of tensions with the United States.
How COP27 can coordinate all countries in the face of reality, achieve a balanced goal, and consolidate the results of the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow COP26 to be held in the UK in 2021, deserves attention.
2.Climate Finance and Financial Issues
The issue of climate finance stems from the different historical responsibilities and capacities of developed and developing countries to deal with climate change.
Because the West took the lead in realizing industrialization in human history, in the process, the West has a greater responsibility for existing emissions and a greater ability to deal with climate change. Countries with backward economic development, especially those with fragile adaptability under climate change, are most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.
Therefore, in the “Paris Agreement”, developed countries pledged to provide 100 billion US dollars of climate financing annually by 2020 to help developing countries save energy and reduce emissions to cope with climate change. But so far, only a fraction of that money has been cashed out.
In addition, there is a lot of controversy among countries on a series of issues such as the concept of climate finance, transparency, and auditing. For example, can the funds provided by developed countries through multilateral and bilateral official development assistance and other channels be defined as climate finance?
Policymakers around the world recognize that there are huge growth opportunities in the global economy’s transition to a decarbonized economy by 2050, and there has been a surge in corporate and some major investors’ interest in adopting sustainable business plans that meet the 1.5°C temperature target .
Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor’s UN special envoy for climate finance, said a new sustainable financial system was slowly being built that would fund private sector initiatives and innovations, potentially enhancing the effectiveness of governments’ climate policies.
Against the background of the current global economic downturn, from a realistic point of view, how much progress can Egypt’s COP27 make on climate finance and financial issues?
3.Extreme climate and natural disaster response
The world faces more extreme, rare weather and unprecedented natural disasters such as severe droughts and floods in 2022.
In the summer of 2022, China’s hot weather lasted for more than two months, the longest on record in the 1960s. Large swathes of southern China are fighting drought, and while there are power shortages in existing large-scale hydropower projects, heavy rains in northern China have caused floods.
In Europe, the summer of 2022 could be the worst drought the continent has experienced in 500 years, according to the European Union’s Global Environment and Safety Monitoring Programme.
image source,Reuters
Africa’s Victoria Falls went from spectacular to disappearing in drought.
Dry areas in Siberia and the western United States have expanded, and droughts in Africa have led to dramatic reductions in agricultural yields.
Since mid-June, Pakistan has been hit by unprecedented monsoon rainfall, which has caused unprecedented floods and turned 1/3 of the country into Heze, resulting in huge loss of personnel and property. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pointed to the floods in Pakistan as a victim of climate change: “Mankind has declared war on nature, and nature is fighting back.”
The Paris Agreement provides for “loss and damage” financing to address irreversible and permanently damaging impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise. What kind of arrangements will COP27 make for “adaptation”, “loss and damage”, and what solutions will it provide?
4.Invest in and help Africa
COP27 is a climate conference in Africa.
Africa is still the continent with the largest number of poor people in the world, and it is also one of the continents most vulnerable to climate change, especially the intensification of droughts and floods.
image source,Natalia Clark
The younger generation pays more attention to climate change issues, including the gap between the rich and the poor, equity, and environmental protection.
Africa accounts for only a fraction of global emissions, but its economy is booming. Falling cleantech costs have brought new hope for the future of Africa, which has the potential to help close the gap in renewable energy demand.
Achieving Africa’s energy and climate goals means more than doubling energy investment over the next decade and dramatically improving adaptive capacity. Only 2% of clean energy has been invested in Africa over the past 20 years.
The COP27 held in Egypt this time will also be a perspective to observe how world powers invest and aid Africa.