Crucial juncture in climate fight

As COP27 opens, India must keep leading the Global South to ensure an equitable future

Heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods. 2022 will be remembered for extreme weather events that brought home the horrors of the intensifying climate crisis and underlined the fact that the problem is going to be much bigger than what anyone had estimated. As the world gathers at Sharm el-Sheikh for the 12-day United Nations-led Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting, scientific reports warn that the world is increasingly falling short of its climate commitments. A key report found last week that the combined pledges made by countries remain insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to below 2°C. Worse, these commitments — known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — are neither cast in stone nor binding. This is especially significant at a time when the Russia-Ukraine conflict has upended global supply chains and pledges of energy transition, forcing European countries to ratchet up emissions and invest in new coal capacity. Against this challenging backdrop, COP27 is expected to focus on four key areas: Common but differentiated responsibilities, technology transfer, climate finance pledges and fair estimations of loss and damage.

The first is based on a two-decade-old principle that while the crisis will affect the whole world, countries that are developed and have polluted for far longer than others must free up carbon space for poorer nations to develop and industrialise. Despite broad agreement, hard commitment and investment have been lacking from richer countries, evident in their efforts to push for a common net-zero year and refusal to embrace more ambitious targets for themselves.

Technology transfer and finance have been sticking points in the previous few editions of COP. The Global North has failed to keep its promise of giving $100 billion a year between 2020 and 2025 to developing countries (a new target is expected from 2026). A United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report found that global efforts in climate adaptation are not keeping pace with growing climate impacts and risks, and a dramatic increase in funding and implementation is urgently needed. At a time when several developed countries are battling an economic slowdown and runaway inflation, it will be important to hold them accountable to pledges made in the past on mitigation and adaptation finance.

The fourth pillar is of loss and damage, which will require financial support and institutional backing as vulnerable communities continue to bear the brunt of climate vagaries. The loss and damage framework comprises climate impacts not avoided by mitigation, adaptation and other measures such as disaster risk management, has both economic and non-economic costs, and is the consequence of extreme weather events such hurricanes and floods and slow onset climatic processes such as sea level rise, glacial retreat and salinisation. Despite recognition of the problem in COP19 (2013), little has moved since.

If this stalemate continues and rich countries insist on having their way in climate negotiations and international platforms, the Global South, home to two-thirds of the world’s population, will continue to face the brunt of the climate crisis. Corrective measures, therefore, are urgent. India has rightly highlighted that finance must be a key negotiation point in COP27. It must continue to be the voice of the Global South, arguing for a better and more equitable future for all.