○ The United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27 will be held in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh in November 2022.
From November 6 to 18, 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 the COP27 meeting.
What does this meeting have to do with each of us?
COP27 is an annual conference 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 response to 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 increase in global temperature this century to 2 ° C, while seeking measures to further limit the increase in temperature to 1.5 ° C.The agreement entered into force on November 4, 2016 and is a legally binding international treaty. Currently, a total of 193 contracting parties (192 countries plus the European Union) have formally joined the Paris Agreement.
Although the Paris Agreement is a science-based international agreement, it affects economic issues such as energy, finance, environmental protection, industry, etc., as well as international relations and realpolitik issues. The annual COP meeting will have different focuses on issues that people in various countries and industries are concerned about.
This year's COP27 has many highlights, of which the following 4 are both independent focuses and interrelated, worthy of attention:
1. Tensions in international relations and energy crisis
The 2021 COP26 climate conference in Glasgow also led to a number of multilateral agreements between different groups of countries, including pledges to cut methane emissions, stop deforestation, and stop financing overseas fossil energy projects.
After the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine, especially the sudden shortage of traditional international energy supplies such as oil and natural gas, the threat of food and economic crises increased. These have had a great impact on the original process of global emission reduction.
For ordinary people, the inflation rate rose sharply after the Russian-Ukrainian war, and energy, food and supply chain security became a major concern in daily life.
○ Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been hit by export sanctions, and global oil and gas prices have skyrocketed. Tight gas supplies are affecting companies' transition to clean energy.
While some governments have made efforts 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, manufacturing powers such as China and Germany were originally leaders in the development of new energy in the world, but in order to maintain the economy and people's living needs, while continuing to work hard to develop new energy fields, they have resumed the use of coal, the most polluting petrochemical energy.
China and the United States are the world's two largest emitters. China has suspended official talks with the United States on climate change because of tensions between China and the United States.
How COP27 can coordinate all countries in the face of reality, reach 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 capabilities 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 lagging economic development, especially those with fragile resilience under climate change, are most vulnerable to climate change impacts.
Therefore, in the Paris Agreement, developed countries pledged to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020 to help developing countries save energy and reduce emissions to combat climate change. But so far, only a fraction of this funding has been delivered.
In addition, there is a lot of controversy among countries on a series of issues related to the concept of climate finance, transparency, auditing, etc. For example, can the funds provided by developed countries through other channels such as multilateral and bilateral official development assistance be defined as climate finance?
Policymakers recognize that there are huge growth opportunities for the global economy to transition to a decarbonized economy by 2050, and there has been a surge in interest from businesses and some anchors in adopting sustainable business plans that meet the 1.5 ° C temperature target.
Mark Carney, 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 innovation, potentially enhancing the effectiveness of governments' climate policies.
In the current context of the global economic downturn, from a practical point of view, how much progress can Egypt's COP27 make on climate finance and finance?
3. Extreme climate and natural disaster response
In 2022 the world faces more extreme, rare weather and unprecedented natural disasters such as severe droughts and floods.
In the summer of 2022, hot weather in China lasted for more than two months, the longest since records began in the 1960s. While large areas of southern China were drought-resistant and power shortages occurred in areas with existing large-scale hydropower projects, torrential rains in northern areas caused flooding.
In Europe, according to the European Union's Global Monitoring Programme for Environment and Security, the drought in the summer of 2022 could be the worst the continent has experienced in 500 years.
○ The Great Victoria Falls in Africa has gone from being spectacular as it flies down to disappearing in drought.
Drought in Siberia and the western United States expanded, and drought in Africa led to a dramatic reduction in agricultural harvests.
Since mid-June, Pakistan has suffered unprecedented monsoon rains, triggering unprecedented floods that have turned one-third of the country into Heze, with huge human and property losses. UN Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out that Pakistan's floods are victims of climate change: "Humans have declared war on nature, and nature is fighting back."
The Paris Agreement provides for "loss and damage" financing to deal with unadaptable and permanent climate change impacts, such as sea level rise. What arrangements and solutions will COP27 make for "adaptation", "loss and damage", etc.?
4. Invest in and help Africa
COP27 is a climate conference held 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 the impacts of climate change, especially the intensification of droughts and floods.
○ The younger generation pays more attention to climate change issues, including the gap between the rich and the poor between the North and the South, fairness, and environmental protection.
Africa accounts for only a small fraction of global emissions, but its economy is growing rapidly. The falling cost of clean technology offers new hope for Africa's future, and Africa 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 increasing adaptive capacity. Over the past 20 years, only 2% of clean energy has been invested in Africa.
This COP27 in Egypt will also be a perspective on how world powers invest and aid in Africa.