Stomach rumbles supersede climate grumbles at Cop27

NEGOTIATORS at the Cop27 summit have warned that a lack of food at the conference is impeding the climate talks.

More than 40,000 people have registered for the event, and are being served by just a handful of food stalls at the conference centre in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-sheikh.

Attendees are being forced into hourlong queues, only to find there is no food left when they reach the front. There have also been complaints of little or no vegan and vegetarian choices at the green summit.

Some negotiators are being forced to skip the queues and subsist on snacks or leave the conference centre to go to nearby restaurants, a 20 minute drive away. One journalist was overheard begging members of staff for a sachet of instant coffee to avoid having to join the queue outside.

“You can’t come to discuss and negotiate and spend one hour queuing for food,” said Karen, a member of the Kenyan negotiating team. Mark Lynas, an advisor to the Vulnerable Group of 20

‘It’s like Cop27 are trying to starve us all into submission to get this done - we’re surviving on Tracker bars’

countries, who are negotiating on the key items of international funding, said the chaos was costing the talks.

“We’re having to subsist on Tracker bars. It’s like they’re trying to starve us into submission,” he said.

The UN Cop organising team did not respond to requests for comment.