Summit strikes ‘big’ deal to fund climate damages
SHARM EL-SHEIKH: A fraught UN COP27 summit wrapped up yesterday with a landmark deal on funding to help vulnerable countries cope with devastating climate impacts — and deep disappointment over a failure to push further ambition on cutting emissions.
The two-week talks, which at times appeared to teeter on the brink of collapse, delivered a major breakthrough on a fund for climate “loss and damage”.
Pakistani climate minister Sherry Rehman said COP27 “responded to the voices of the vulnerable, the damaged and the lost of the whole world”.
“We have struggled for 30 years on this path, and today in Sharm el-Sheikh this journey has achieved its first positive milestone,” she said.
Tired delegates applauded when the loss and damage fund was adopted as the sun came up yesterday following days of marathon negotiations over the proposal. But jubilation over that achievement was countered by stern warnings.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said the UN climate talks had “taken an important step towards justice” with the loss and damage fund, but fallen short in pushing for the urgent carbon-cutting needed to tackle global warming.
“Our planet is still in the emergency room. We need to drastically reduce emissions now and this is an issue this COP did not address,” Mr Guterres said.
A final COP27 statement covering the broad array of the world’s efforts to grapple with a warming planet held the line on the aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
It also included language on renewable energy for the first time, while reiterating previous calls to accelerate “efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”.
But that failed to go much further than a similar decision from last year’s meeting in Glasgow on key issues around cutting planet-heating pollution. In a scolding intervention as the talks went into yesterday morning, European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said the EU was “disappointed” with a lack of ambition on reducing emissions.
“What we have in front of us is not enough of a step forward for people and planet. It doesn’t bring enough added efforts from major emitters,” he said.
The EU had threatened to walk away from the talks if it did not get better commitments on emissions, but it did not block the final statement following marathon talks that ended early yesterday.
Mr Timmermans pointed to the EU’s decision to back the creation of a “loss and damage” fund at COP27 to compensate vulnerable nations hit by climate impacts.
“We’re faced with a moral dilemma, because this deal is not enough on mitigation. Do we walk away and thereby kill a fund that vulnerable countries fought so hard for for decades?... No. That would have been a huge mistake and a huge missed opportunity to tackle climate change,” he said.