Beginning with a warning against "backsliding," the UN climate summit

SHAMAR EL-SHEIKH The UN's COP27 climate summit got under way on Sunday in Egypt with appeals for affluent countries to make amends for poor countries following a year of harsh weather disasters and cautions against abandoning efforts to reduce emissions.

Thousands of people have died, millions have been displaced, and billions have been damaged worldwide as a result of climate-related disasters just in the last few months.

Unprecedented heatwaves scorched three continents, droughts grew worse in Africa and the western United States, cyclones lashed the Caribbean, and massive floods decimated large portions of Pakistan and Nigeria.

The conference is being held in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh during a turbulent year that has seen Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a shortage of oil, skyrocketing inflation, and the lingering consequences of the Covid pandemic.

Delegates agree to put ‘loss and 

damage’ issue on COP27 agenda

However, Simon Stiell, the UN's executive secretary for climate change, said that he would not be a "custodian of backsliding" on the target of reducing greenhouse emissions by 45 percent by 2030 in order to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over late-19th-century levels.

As the 13-day conference began, Stiell declared, "We will be holding everyone accountable, be they presidents, prime ministers, or CEOs."

"Everyone everywhere in the globe every single day doing everything they possibly can to address the climate catastrophe," he continued, "is the core of implementation."

According to research released last week, the Earth's surface will warm by 2.8C by the end of the decade and carbon pollution would rise 10%.

If kept, pledges made as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement will only reduce global warming by a few tenths of a degree.

As he handed over the chairmanship to Egypt, Alok Sharma, the British president of the previous COP26, said, "While I do understand that leaders around the world have faced competing priorities this year, we must be clear: as challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe."

How many more admonitions to wake up do the world's leaders genuinely need? He questioned.

The World Meteorological Organization of the UN issued a severe warning, noting that the last eight years are on pace to be the eight warmest on record due to an acceleration of sea level rise, glacier melt, and heatwaves.

Antonio Guterres, the head of the UN, said in a statement that "as COP27 kicks off, our planet is sending a distress signal."

"Loss and harm"

The COP27 meeting will place a greater emphasis than ever on money, a significant bone of contention that has strained relations between wealthy nations that benefited from the burning of fossil fuels and developing nations experiencing the harshest effects of climate change.

The United States and the European Union have delayed their feet and contested the need for a distinct funding stream out of fear of developing an open-ended reparations mechanism.

On Sunday, delegates decided to add the "loss and damage" topic to the COP27 agenda, marking the beginning of what will undoubtedly be contentious debates.

According to Egyptian COP27 President Sameh Shoukry, the inclusion of the item on the agenda "reflects a spirit of solidarity and empathy for the pain of the victims of climate-induced calamities."

To thunderous applause, he declared, "We all owe a debt of appreciation to activists and civil society organisations that have steadfastly demanded the freedom to debate funding for loss and damage."

Shoukry also pointed out that wealthy nations have not adhered to a separate commitment to provide $100 billion annually to assist developing nations in greening their economies and increasing their capacity to withstand future climate change. He also bemoaned the fact that loans are a common form of climate financing.

"We cannot afford to carry on in this manner. He urged solutions that "show we are serious about not leaving anyone behind" and stated, "We have to adapt our tactics to address this existential challenge.

China-US tensions

More than 120 international leaders will attend the summit on Monday and Tuesday after the first day of discussions.

China's Xi Jinping, whose leadership was extended last month at a Communist Party Congress, will be the most obvious absentee.

US Vice President Joe Biden has stated that he will attend, but only after the upcoming legislative elections on Tuesday, which might result in the Republican Party taking control of one or both chambers of Congress.

Cooperation between the two greatest economies and carbon polluters in the world, the United States and China, has been essential to the few successes in the nearly 30-year history of UN climate discussions, notably the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The outcome of COP27 is uncertain since Sino-US ties have reached a 40-year low following a visit to Taiwan by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and a US restriction on the sale of high-level chip technology to China.

If it takes place, a meeting between Xi and Biden at the G20 summit in Bali a few days before the UN climate conference concludes could be pivotal.