COP 27 with modest results
A compensation fund for Loss and Damage was agreed upon, but work will be needed on the details of this fund.
By Luis Fierro Carrión (*)
Twitter: @Luis_Fierro_C
The 27th Conference of Parties (or COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) just concluded on November 20th in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Although it had been announced as the COP of “implementation” and focused on adaptation to climate change, in practice it got bogged down for several reasons:
- Developing countries demanded that a new "compensation fund" be created for "Loss and Damage" caused by climate change (China, a member of the G77, has not indicated whether it will contribute to such a fund, despite being currently responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions). The creation of the fund was finally approved on Sunday the 20th, but the details are yet to be defined (including who should contribute and who can receive the resources).
- The small island developing countries, and the European Union, insisted that ambition in reducing emissions should be increased, in order to keep alive the goal of limiting the increase in temperature to less than 1.5 degrees C. Others said that this goal was no longer feasible, but an effort had to be made to not exceed a 2 degree increase in temperature.
The event lasted two days longer than expected, given the difficulty in reaching consensus. There is no voting rule in the COP (not even a super-majority of 2/3 or 5/6), which is why it is understood that decisions must be unanimous (in some cases, when one or two minor countries have objected, the conference chair has indicated that it was his “sense” that there was consensus).
In my science fiction novel “The Last Human”, I anticipate that if a voting mechanism cannot be established, humanity will not be able to find a solution to this existential threat, and the temperature will continue to rise, and with it the sea level, natural disasters, droughts and floods in various regions, famines, among other catastrophic consequences.
Despite these setbacks and not having reached the goal of $100 billion in annual climate financing from developed to developing countries, financing for adaptation has been increasing, something that developing countries also demanded. Financial support for adaptation has doubled in the last decade (reaching $28 billion, or 35% of total climate finance).
A few days before the COP, the book "International Negotiation in Latin America" was released, edited by FLACSO, which includes a chapter I wrote on "The negotiation strategy on the climate financing package in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change of the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean”. AILAC is a negotiating group that includes eight Latin American countries, and which was key in the negotiation of the Paris Agreement, and in particular regarding the climate finance aspects.
During COP 27, a Team Europe Initiative (TEI) was launched to support adaptation and resilience in Africa, which will coordinate the support of the European Union and four EU Member States (Germany, Denmark, France and the Netherlands), for an amount of $1 billion in donations. I participated in the design of this initiative through the EU NDC Facility.
In short, in the climate negotiations process, there is one step forward and two steps back; but let us hope that the apocalyptic predictions of my novel do not come true.
(*) English translation of a column published in “El Universo” newspaper in Ecuador, November 24, 2022
https://www.eluniverso.com/opinion/columnistas/cop-27-con-modestos-resultados-nota/
