It will hardly be the “turning point” requested by the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres. Maybe it won’t even be a useful show just to offer the opportunity “for people in power to lie and greenwash,” as Greta Thunberg predicts. But the risk that the COP27 of Sharm el-Sheik has little impact in the fight against climate change is certainly high. Also because, on the never simple works of the world climate conferences, this year a boulder has rained: the infamous Russian invasion of Ukraine adds to the tensions between the United States and China, now the new normal. The result is the most toxic geopolitical picture since the end of the Cold War.
The war created new rifts and deepened existing ones. It has exacerbated an energy crisis that has slowed down efforts towards the “decarbonisation” of production and consumption systems, even pushing the Europe of the Green Deal and Germany of the Greens to rediscover coal. China and India will thus have new arguments to defend their dependence on the dirtiest of fossil fuels. The US administration, which is also accelerating its climate agenda, is urging oil and gas producers to increase extraction to bring prices down. President Joe Biden had promised to quickly end the fossil fuel era, but the war in Ukraine has turned priorities upside down.
Overall, G20 nations spent $ 693 billion in support of the fossil fuel industry in 2021, up 16% over 2020 and the highest since 2014, according to a BloombergNef report. And according to the International Energy Agency, the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix is still 80% of the total.
In this context, Cop27 starts in Egypt on Sunday. The leaders of nearly 200 states will parade on stage, with sometimes very distant views on the intensity and speed of the energy transition, on the historical responsibilities of pollution and on who has to pay the bill for transformation and damage. Many advanced countries (Europe in the lead), Pacific island states (besieged every day by rising seas), international organizations and climate activists will ask to do more and faster. Many emerging countries (India in the lead) will ask for more time and more funding, to reconcile energy transition and development.
The global warming of time, however, does not allow any. Even if states kept their promises, global average temperatures would rise by at least 2.5 degrees at the end of the century, compared to pre-industrial values, according to the latest United Nations reports. However, since most countries are behind even on these insufficient promises, the risk is of overheating close to 3 degrees.