First draft of COP27 climate deal leaves issues unresolved

THE first draft of a deal being hashed out at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt would keep a target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, but leaves many of the most contentious issues in the talks unresolved ahead of today’s deadline.

Egypt’s COP27 president urged negotiators to overcome their differences, while poor nations slammed the draft as unambitious for not addressing their need for money to cope with damage already being wrought by climate-driven storms, droughts and floods.

“Time is not on our side, let us come together now and deliver by Friday,” COP27 President Sameh Shoukry said in a letter to delegates yesterday.

The 20-page draft for a hoped-for final agreement repeats the goal from last year’s Glasgow Climate Pact to limit warming to 1.5°C, and “welcomes” the fact that delegates had for the first time begun discussions on launching a so-called loss and damage fund for countries being ravaged by climate impacts.

US Special Climate Envoy John Kerry said last week that a few of the nearly 200 countries gathered for the talks in Sharm el-sheikh had been resisting language around 1.5°C, the level of warming beyond which scientists say climate change impacts dangerously spiral. Kerry declined to name the countries.

Kerry held a closed-door meeting yesterday with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua at the summit. “We’re making progress. Let’s let the talks continue,” he said as he left the meeting.

Xie has said China was not opposed to including the 1.5°C target. China and the US, the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, agreed earlier this week to resume their climate co-operation, after a hiatus caused by diplomatic tensions over Taiwan.

Highlighting frustrations over the talks so far, a delegation from Britain, the EU and Canada met COP27 president Shoukry yesterday to draw attention to gaps in the current negotiating texts and to express their view that the talks should not be allowed to fail.

“There’s still a lot of gaps in the texts,” said a spokesperson for Britain’s COP26 presidency, which hosted last year’s climate summit in Glasgow. “They need to build on what has gone before.”

Climate-vulnerable countries, including small island nations, pointed out that while the draft deal mentions loss and damage, it does not include details for launching a fund, a key demand in the talks that delegates have worried could stymie a final agreement.

Wealthy countries for years have resisted a loss and damage fund over fear that it could open them up to endless financial liability for their historical contribution to climate change.

“Anything less than establishing a loss and damage fund at this COP is a betrayal of the people who are working so hard to clean up this environment, and the people fighting for humanity,” said Molwyn Joseph, Antigua and Barbuda’s environment minister.