SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) – This yr’s U.N. climate summit featured visits by world leaders, proposals by business leaders, and negotiations by nearly 200 nations concerning the future of worldwide motion on climate change.
Listed below are a few of the key takeaways from the two-week COP27 summit held within the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh:
FUND FOR “CLIMATE JUSTICE”
After years of resistance from wealthy governments, nations for the primary time agreed to establish a fund to supply payouts to developing countries that suffer “loss and damage” from climate-driven storms, floods, droughts and wildfires.
Despite being the standout success of the talks, it’s going to likely take several years to hammer out the small print over how the fund will likely be run, including how the cash will likely be dispersed and which countries are more likely to be eligible.
Political Cartoons on World Leaders
The ultimate COP27 deal drew criticism from some quarters for not doing more to rein in climate-damaging emissions, each by setting more ambitious national targets and by scaling back use of fossil fuels equivalent to coal, oil and natural gas.
While the deal text called for efforts to phase down use of unabated coal power and phase-out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, some countries had pushed to phase out, or not less than phase down, all fossil fuels.
But from the opening speeches to the gaveling of the ultimate deal, using fossil fuels was affirmed for the near future.
President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates – host of next yr’s COP28 climate summit – said his country would proceed to deliver oil and gas “for so long as the world is in need”.
Oil company CEOs were readily available at this yr’s summit, after having been pushed to the margins at COP26. Natural gas chiefs were billing themselves as climate champions, despite gas corporations having faced lawsuits in america over such claims.
Nevertheless, some electricity-poor nations in Africa argued for his or her right to develop their natural gas reserves, at the same time as they face increasing climate impacts equivalent to drought.
And fossil fuel phase-out clubs launched around last yr’s summit in Glasgow were struggling to recruit recent members amid this yr’s energy crisis attributable to the Ukraine war.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was greeted by roaring crowds as he declared “Brazil is back” in the worldwide climate fight, and vowed to host COP30 in 2025 within the Amazon region.
The leftist leader made the Egypt climate summit his first visit abroad since winning Brazil’s presidential election last month against right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over mounting destruction of the rainforest and refused to carry the 2019 climate summit originally planned for Brazil.
On Monday, Brazil also joined Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo in launching a partnership to cooperate on forest preservation. The trilateral alliance was negotiated over a decade of on-off talks that continued at the same time as the countries’ national forest policies and leaderships modified. They’re expected to press wealthy nations to pay for forest preservation.
U.S., CHINA RELATIONSHIP REKINDLED
A critical precursor for the climate talks’ success happened distant from the Red Sea locale.
Because the COP entered its second week, China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden met in Indonesia for the G20 where the heads of the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters agreed to restart cooperation on climate change after a months-long hiatus as a consequence of tensions over Taiwan.
China’s top climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua had previously told reporters that informal dialogue with John Kerry, his U.S counterpart and a “close friend for 25 years”, had continued.
Xie said on Nov. 19 that he expects to maintain up direct cooperation on climate change with Kerry after the tip of COP27 – and presumably after Kerry recovers from COVID.
BILLIONS IN PRIVATE FINANCE (BUT NOT TRILLIONS… YET)
The world of finance has failed to supply enough money to assist countries cut their carbon emissions and adapt their economies to the changes wrought by global warming, yet the COP27 talks suggest change is coming.
Among the many steps more likely to unencumber additional cash is a plan to reform leading public lenders equivalent to the World Bank in order that they will take more risk and lend more cash. By doing so, countries hope more private investors will take part.
Deals struck on the talks also give hope for faster motion, chief amongst them a landmark deal between countries equivalent to america and Japan, and personal investors to assist Indonesia shift away from coal-fired power generation more quickly.
(Reporting by Katy Daigle and Simon Jessop; Editing by Peter Graff)
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