Getting Ready for COP27

Getting ready for COP 27

It might feel as though the dust is just settling on COP26, but COP27 is suddenly only 3 months away. Whilst work is ongoing to ensure the agreements made in Glasgow are followed through, we thought it was time for a roundup of what to look out for as we gear up for COP 27.  

the location

COP27, will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt from 6 to 18 November 2022. 

The location in itself is a controversial choice. In nominating Egypt as host, the UN hoped to spotlight the very acute needs of Africa in relation to climate change. What has happened is that it put the spotlight on  the civil rights abuses and curbs to free speech that have become the trademark of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s premiership. Since coming to power in a military coup in 2013, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information estimates that 65,000 political prisoners have been held in the country’s detention system, which has grown to over 78 major centres. Anyone viewed as a critic, from politicians to those posting on social media to small groups demonstrating over the price rises on Cairo’s metro system, have been imprisoned on terrorism charges. There is also evidence of rights abuses inflicted on the country’s LGBTQ+ communities. Given the treatment of its own citizens, there is mounting concern over the treatment Egypt might consider appropriate for climate activists coming to Sharm el-Sheik to protest. 

Controversy aside, the choice of Egypt was an intentional move to shift the conference away from the Global North and to highlight the needs of the Global South with a specific focus on Africa. Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics, said: “ COP27 … should be the African Cop. The issues of climate finance, adaptation, and loss and damage should all be high on the list of priorities, and all are of particular importance to Africa, which is home to many of the most vulnerable people to the impacts of climate change.”  

laying the groundwork

Before any COP meeting, there is an enormous amount of diplomacy that goes on ahead of time to ensure that the COP itself is a culmination of talks rather than the starting point. 

COP27 – rather naturally – builds on the work done at previous COPs, most specifically COP26. As hosts of COP26, the UK holds the Presidency until COP27 and is therefore working very closely with the Egypt team to ensure maximum progress is made on the Glasgow agreements before they hand over. The Glasgow-Sharm el-Sheikh Work Programme (GlaSS) is designed to ensure a smooth hand over of responsibilities along with no dropped balls in terms of the plans agreed last year.  

COP26 provided a number of breakthroughs regarding developed countries’ financial responsibilities towards the developing world and those countries most vulnerable to climate change. Finance leaders from over 100 countries met in Bonn, Germany in June this year to continue these conversations. The focus is on the longstanding but as yet unfulfilled pledge by rich nations to provide $100 billion annually as grants and investments (and not loans) to less developed countries to assist with climate mitigation and adaptation.  

Another key financial breakthrough was the founding of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ). GFANZ is a coalition of leading financial institutions committed to aiding and accelerating the global transition to net zero. With over 450 member firms from across global finance, the alliance represents more than $130 trillion in assets under management and advice. The sums involved and gigantic corporate influence have the potential to revolutionise all aspects of the international shift to net zero. Work continues now to ensure that the pledges made by GFANZ members at COP26 are codified into action by COP27. Egypt’s minister for international cooperation, Rania Al Mashat, told the Guardian that COP27 needed “to be about the practicalities” and how finance can unlock action and implementation, rather than pledges and promises. 

outstanding from cop26

Two key issues were felt to have been left outstanding from COP26 – reductions to fossil fuel use and, directly related, national commitments to specified levels of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The Worldwide Fund for Nature refers to this as the ‘Global Ambition Gap’ – the globally acknowledged, scientifically proven need to remain aligned with the Paris Climate accords to keep global warming at no more than 1.5 C versus our current path of somewhere between 2 – 3.4 C.  

Up to this point the mechanism used to reduce national emissions have been ‘NDCs’ or Nationally Determined Contributions. These NDCs detail a country’s greenhouse gas reduction targets — when they will reach “peak emissions” and when they will reach “net zero” carbon emissions, and what that trajectory looks like. They are voluntary and non-binding and - given that current projections have us sailing well past 1.5 degrees – ineffectual. COP27 will need to provide a response to this shortfall through tightened contributions and a more stringent system for enforcing them. 

At the very last minute in Glasgow, wording on an agreement on the long-term future of coal was changed from “phase out” to “phase down” – a dilution that caused outrage among many but was seen by developing countries as a fair compromise as they try to catch up with wealthier, westernised economies. This agreement and the divisive politics around it will almost certainly be revisited in November. 

countdown to november

Almost 9 months on from COP26, progress has been patchy. Global security has been profoundly knocked off course with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leading to the prospect of a food crisis in many parts of the world and concerns over energy reliability. Add to that the cost-of-living crisis and acute inflation/ stagflation, and the climate crisis begins to feel like one crisis among many other, more pressing crises.  

And yet the wildfires in California, drought around the Horn of Africa and withering European heatwave keep climate change in the forefront of our minds as it becomes an unavoidable fact of more and more peoples’ lives.  

It remains to be seen whether COP27 will generate quite the media frenzy that surrounded COP26. But given the ever more tangible effects of global warming, it seems  reasonable to hope that the agreements to come out of COP27 will be more binding, science-based and actionable than the consequential but rather theoretical decisions made at COP26 

Our post COP26 business briefing, covers the key agreements made around cuts to methane emissions, deforestation, coal emissions and the responsibility of financial institutions to fast track green and sustainable investment.