COP27 agrees to fund climate damages, no progress on emission cuts
The ‘landmark’ target of the draft Montreal deal proposes protecting 30 percent of the world’s land and sea by 2030, known informally as 30-by-30...
AFRAUGHT UN summit wrapped up Sunday (20) with a landmark deal on funding to help vulnerable countries cope with devastating climate impacts - but also anger over a failure to be more ambitious on cutting emissions.
The two-week talks in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, 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’.
‘We have struggled for 30 years on this path, and today in Sharm el-Sheikh this journey has achieved its first positive milestone,’ she told the summit.
Tired delegates applauded when the fund was adopted as the sun came up Sunday following almost two extra days of round-the-clock negotiations.
But jubilation over that achievement was countered by stern warnings.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said the talks had ‘taken an important step towards justice’ with the loss and damage fund, but fell short in pushing for the urgent carbon-cutting needed to tackle global warming.
‘Our planet is still in the emergency room,’ Guterres said. ‘We need to drastically reduce emissions now and this is an issue this COP did not address.’
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also warned that ‘more must be done’, while French President Emmanuel Macron proposed another summit in Paris ahead of COP28 in Dubai to agree ‘a new financial pact’ for vulnerable nations.
‘Stonewalled by emitters’
A final COP27 statement covering the broad 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