UN climate talks enter final day in deadlock
Talks at a UN climate conference enter their final day yesterday, gridlocked by a make-orbreak tussle between rich and developing nations over money for countries in the crosshairs of increasingly intense and costly impacts of global warming.
Representatives from nearly 200 countries have gathered at the COP27 in Egypt for two weeks with the aim of driving forward action on climate change as the world faces a worsening onslaught of extreme floods, heat waves and droughts.
The daunting list of urgent tasks includes finding agreement, and funds, for the emissions cuts needed to limit average warming to 1.5C from preindustrial levels, which scientists say is a safer guardrail to avoid the most dangerous impacts.
For many developing countries, and small island states most threatened by sea level rise, the defining issues at the conference is money for the “loss and damage” caused by climate change impacts.
A cascade of climate-driven extremes in recent months, from floods in Pakistan and Nigeria to heatwaves and droughts across the world, have shone a spotlight on the ferocious impacts of a warming world for developing nations that are also struggling with debts and surging inflation.
But negotiations have been gridlocked by the issue, with developing countries unifying behind a call for COP27 to create a specific loss and damage fund — an idea that has faced reluctance from richer polluters wary of liability.
“We are not where we need to be in order to close this conference with tangible and robust outcomes,” said Sameh Shoukry, the COP27 president, late on Thursday night as he urged delegates to act with “urgency”.
In a proposal to delegates late on Thursday, European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said the European Union was open to the creation of a fund to help the most vulnerable countries, favouring a “mosaic” of options for providing money from a range of sources.
That would potentially include China and other nations that have become wealthier since they were listed as developing countries in 1992.
Earlier at the meeting, the 130-nation group known as G77+China issued a proposal to create the fund at the COP27 and agree on the nitty-gritty details at the next UN climate talks in Dubai next year.
A draft outline of positions on loss and damage published on Thursday included key elements of the main proposals, providing a starting point for negotiations to begin in earnest.