COP27 talks down to wire as rifts deepen

SHARM EL SHEIKH: Countries were considering a draft for a final COP27 climate deal on Saturday, hours after it seemed like parleys could collapse after the European Union threatened to walk out following apparently unresolvable differences between developed and developing countries, though some breakthrough appeared to have been made.

The draft cover decision, a summary of the significant resolutions and agreements, recognised the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C and achieve deep and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, recognising that the impact of the climate crisis will be much lower at the temperature increase of 1.5°C compared with 2°C.

“The big takeaway from the talks at Sharm El Sheikh is the agreement to have a loss and damage fund. It’s a very big acknowledgement that loss and damage is happening due to climate crisis. The text doesn’t mention historical responsibility but it is noting the increasing urgency of enhancing efforts to avert, minimise and address loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change in light of continued global warming and its significant impacts on vulnerable populations and the ecosystems on which they depend,” said an Indian negotiator, who added that India’s loss and damage costs will likely be in the tens of billions of dollars.

“Yes, some compromises have happened and there are loose ends but if agreed it is big. For decades vulnerable countries have asked for new separate funding on this and an acknowledgement of the loss,” he added.

Another big takeaway, this person added, “was that despite several attempts to break the G77 + China unity, by suggesting India and China and other emerging economies and high income countries be donors to loss and damage finance facility, the bloc has remained unified”.

It was not, till the time of going to press, clear if all 197 governments would back it.

At 6.42 PM when a closing plenary was expected, negotiators said a major area of work under

Mitigation Work Programme (on how can Paris goals on reducing emissions can be rapidly achieved) was stuck with parties remaining divided.

The High Ambition Coalition, an informal group of approximately 61 countries like Canada, Norway, UK etc made a statement on Saturday evening demanding strengthening of the text from the mitigation point of view.

The Coalition demanded that the cover “1. Hold fast to our commitment to 1.5°C, and recognise the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s finding that to keep 1.5°C in reach, global emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest. This COP decision must put the world on a path to phasing out all fossil fuels and an urgent, just transition to renewables. 2. Insist that the Mitigation Work Programme focus on both ambition and implementation… 3. Call for NDCs that align with a 1.5°C pathway to be delivered and implemented urgently, particularly by the G20. And we must recognise that key sectors, like shipping and aviation, must be transformed.”

“We cannot backslide on the Glasgow Climate Pact. If this is to truly be an implementation COP we must start the work on phasing out fossil fuels, and implementing bold transformation toward net zero,” said Alok Sharma, COP26 president from United Kingdom in a statement.

Hours earlier, European Union representatives said they were ready to walk away from the talks if the deal did not advance efforts to curb global warming by requiring that countries take more ambitious action in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. “We’d rather have no decision than a bad decision,” EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said.

The draft also appeared to reject some of the contentions put forward by countries like India, China and the like-minded developing countries. These included silence on the role of fossil fuels, particularly oil and gas, while continuing to call for a phase down of unabated coal use – an approach India resisted.

On the loss and damage fund, which emerged as one of the main areas of contention, the draft proposed that parties agree to a watered-down version but leave the modalities of the fund and the sources of finance to COP28 next year.

“There was a stronger draft text on loss and damage fund which the Presidency had proposed. But the rich countries did not support that because it did not allow them to suggest expansion of donor base and instead they pushed for a vague language. It basically says sources can be decided later. A major problem remains that loss and damage text still states keeping the global average temperature rise to below 1.5 °C will be essential to limiting future loss and damage, which may be understood to be linked to mitigation,” a negotiator working on the agenda said.

The draft also recognised that the massive reduction in emissions requires accelerated action in this critical decade, on the basis of “equity” and “scientific knowledge”, “reflecting common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in the light of different national circumstances and in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.”

At the heart of the contentious issues at the talks is a divide between the rich and poor countries.

Developed countries want the donor base for the loss and damage fund – a corpus to compensate countries that bear the brunt of the climate crisis – to be expanded to include countries like India and China, which are classified as developing countries.

Developing countries instead seek for these costs to be borne by developed nations since they largely ate up the carbon space, and must now make amends. Developing countries like India have also pushed for the distinction between coal – a fossil fuel poor countries depend on more – and others like oil and gas to be removed in targeting what sources must be acted on first.

The Sharm El Sheikh draft decision integrates India’s proposal on achieving sustainable lifestyles to reduce emissions. “Noting the importance of transition to sustainable lifestyles and sustainable patterns of consumption and production for the efforts to address climate change, also noting the importance of pursuing an approach to education that promotes a shift in lifestyles while fostering patterns of development and sustainability based on care, community and cooperation,” it states in the fourth para.

But the draft doesn’t strengthen the call to double adaptation finance by developed countries. Adaptation finance refers to money developed countries are meant to pay to help poorer nations adapt to new technologies and methods that can help reduce emissions and vulnerability to climate change.

The draft urges parties to adopt “a transformational approach to enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability” to climate change and also urged developed country parties to urgently and significantly scale up their provision of climate finance, technology transfer and capacity-building for adaptation.

“This COP was supposed to be the COP for implementation. Instead, it ended up being a COP for ‘addition and expansion of themes’.

The final text has seen addition and expansion of a long list of issues like just transition, good health, safe and secure water, human rights, critically of early warning systems, etc . While all of these are critical, they don’t speak to the current implementation needs, especially the ones related to finance. There was no meaningful win for the developing world from this COP,” said Vaibhav Chatirvedi, fellow, Council on Energy, Environment and Water

“The hope that was raised on the first day of COP with inclusion of loss and damage in the agenda without any resistance from the developed world delivered at least partial success by the end of COP. While the new funding arrangement for supporting developing countries on the issue of loss and damage is welcome, who will pay for it drowned into the choppy water of definitions, mechanisms, and most importantly ‘developed countries versus major economies,” added Chaturvedi.