COP27 | U.N. climate talks open in Egypt

Delegates at the the https://unfccc.int/news/cop27-in-sharm-el-sheikh-to-focus-on-delivering-on-the-promises-of-paris” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener”>U.N.’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt agreed to discuss whether rich nations should compensate poor countries most vulnerable to climate change for their suffering.

“This creates for the first time an institutionally stable space on the formal agenda of COP and the Paris Agreement to discuss the pressing issue of funding arrangements needed to deal with existing gaps, responding to loss and damage,” COP27 president Sameh Shoukry told the opening plenary.

The item was adopted to the agenda in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Sunday, as world leaders arrived for the negotiations scheduled to run through November 18.

Much of the tension at COP27 is expected to relate to https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/loss-and-damage-will-be-major-topic-at-upcoming-cop27-says-bhupender-yadav/article65914031.ece” target=”_self” rel=”noopener”>loss and damage — funds provided by wealthy nations to vulnerable lower-income countries that bear little responsibility for climate-warming emissions.

At COP26 in 2021 in Glasgow, high-income nations blocked a proposal for a loss and damage financing body, instead supporting a new three-year dialogue for funding discussions.

The loss and damage discussions now on the agenda at COP27 will not involve liability or binding compensation, but they are intended to lead to a conclusive decision “no later than 2024,” Mr. Shoukry said.

“The inclusion of this agenda reflects a sense of solidarity for the victims of climate disasters,” he added.

Negotiators spent a frantic two days ahead of the meeting discussing whether to formally consider the issue of loss and damage, or reparations, to vulnerable nations suffering from climate change. The issue, which has weighed on the talks for years, was agreed just hours before the meeting officially opened.

In an opening speech, the head of the U.N.’s panel of climate scientist highlighted the urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of global warming.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to save our planet and our livelihoods,” said Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The outgoing chair of the talks, British official Alok Sharma, said countries had made considerable progress at their last meeting in Glasgow, including on setting more ambitious targets for cutting emissions, finalising the rules of the 2015 Paris agreement and pledging to begin phasing out the use of coal — the most heavily polluting fossil fuel.

“We kept 1.5°C [2.7°F] alive,” he said, referring to the most ambitious goal of the Paris pact, to keep temperature increase since pre-industrial times under that threshold.

Yet now those efforts were being “buffeted by global headwinds,” he warned.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s brutal and illegal https://www.thehindu.com/topic/russia-ukraine-crisis/” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener”>war in Ukraine has precipitated multiple global crisis, energy and food insecurity, inflationary pressures and spiralling debt,” said Mr. Sharma.

“These crises have compounded existing climate vulnerabilities and the scarring effects of the pandemic.”

However, even the most optimistic scenarios assuming countries do everything they have pledged put the world on course for 1.7° C of warming (3.1° F), he warned.

“As challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe,” said Mr. Sharma. “We must find the ability to focus on more than one thing at once.”

“How many more wake-up calls does the world to world leaders actually need,” he said, citing recent devastating floods in Pakistan and Nigeria, and historic droughts in Europe, the United States and China.

His successor, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, said his office would “spare no effort” to achieve the goals of the Paris accord.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi wrote on Twitter that Egypt, as host country, was seeking to move from the “pledges phase to the implantation phase with concrete measures on the ground.”

The U.N.’s top climate official also appealed to countries both to engage constructively in the negotiations and take the necessary action back home.

“Here in Sharm el-Sheikh, we have a duty to speed up our international efforts to turn words into action,” he said, adding that “every corner of human activity must align with our Paris commitment and pursue our efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C.”

More than 40,000 participants have been registered for this year’s talks, reflecting the sense of urgency as major weather events around the world impact many people and cost billions of dollars in repairs.

Egypt said over 120 world leaders will attend, many of them speaking at a high-level event on November 7-8, while U.S. President Joe Biden was expected to arrive later in the week.

But many top figures, including China’s President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, were not planning to come, casting doubt on whether the talks in Egypt could result in any major deals to cut emissions without these two nations.

Rights groups criticised Egypt on Sunday for restricting protests and stepping up surveillance during the summit.

New York-based Human Rights Watch, citing Egyptian media, said authorities had also arrested dozens of people for calling for protests.

“It is becoming clear that Egypt’s government has no intention of easing its abusive security measures and allowing for free speech and assembly,” Adam Coogle, the group’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch said it had had joined about 1,400 groups from around the world urging Egypt to lift the restrictions on civil society groups.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/nobel-winners-call-attention-to-egypt-political-prisoners/article66087182.ece” target=”_self” rel=”noopener”>Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a prominent imprisoned pro-democracy activist from Egypt, escalated his hunger strike Sunday on the first day of the https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/cop-27-climate-networking/article66101457.ece” target=”_self” rel=”noopener”>COP27, according to his family.

Mr. Abdel-Fattah’s aunt, award-winning novelist Ahdaf Soueif, said he went into a “full hunger strike,” and stopped drinking water at 10 a.m. local time. Concerned that he could die without water, she was calling for authorities to release him in response to local and international calls.