What is COP27?
COP is the short form for Conference of the Parties, with” parties” about the 197 countries that consented to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992.
This convention addresses” dangerous mortal hindrance with the climate system” and stabilizes situations of GHG emissions into the atmosphere. The U.N. climate body convenes those governments once a time to bandy addressing climate change. This is the 27th time different have gathered under the convention — hence, COP27.
The conference was from Nov. 6 through Nov. 18, 2022. But climate negotiations are famously contentious, so expect it to go into overtime.
when was COP27
The meeting was held at Sharm el Sheikh. It is an Egyptian resort town on the Red Sea coast.
Two main sites for the COP27 event: are the Blue Zone and the Green Zone.
The Blue Zone was at the Sharm el Sheikh International Convention Center, South of the town centre, mainly for the official negotiations. United Nations superintended the space, which is a concern to international law.
Across the road in the Peace Park Botanical Garden will be the Green Zone, and the Egyptian government will run that area and open it to the public.
The goal of COP27
The final goal of the conference was in dispute. Developed nations need to focus on ways to support developing nations in phasing out fossil fuels and transitioning to renewable energy.
Developing countries want a commitment to the money they need to address the disasters due to climate change they are already experiencing.
However, emerging countries need to find economic assistance for factors like relocating endangered areas or just making up for the economic growth lost to worsening floods, storms and heat waves. Industrialized nations, including the United States, have partly opposed a new fund. Because they fear being held legally liable for the rising damages happened by climate change.
It was the first climate summit in Africa since 2016. Many activists said they hope it will be an ‘African COP’ in both focus and location, as the African nations face some of the worst impacts of climate change.
Above 35,000 representatives are awaited to join the event, including U.S. President Biden and more than 100 heads of nation, according to the U.N. climate body. Over 40,000 people attended the 26th summit in Glasgow with 120 world leaders. But it’s still a substantial gathering for a year in which no significant decisions are officially expected.
Disapproval at COP26
Climate activists have demonstrated their concern for the crisis through marches, hunger strikes, sit-ins, and other acts of civil disobedience at COP26.
Protests are planned in Sharm el Sheikh while world leaders highlight Egypt’s poor human rights record at COP27. As President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government has criminalized free assembly and banned demonstrations, those demonstrations appear unlikely.
Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister, said that Egypt would permit some demonstrations at COP27. However only in a facility adjacent to the conference centre rather than in negotiating rooms or on the streets. Environmental activists said they remain fearful of climate change and global warming.
COPs in the past
Berlin was the site of the first COP in 1995. After a critical mass of nations approved the climate convention, which set the stage for two years later’s Kyoto Protocol.
In contrast, the Kyoto Protocol required wealthy, industrialized nations to cut emissions. However developing countries like China, India, and Brazil would reduce emissions voluntarily.
Climate change has been the subject of the last few decades of debate between the senate and the president over which nation is most responsible. In 2015, Obama’s authority broke the impasse by leading about 200 countries to sign the groundbreaking Paris climate agreement. For the first time, rich and developing countries agreed to act, albeit at various centres, to check out the solutions for climate change.
After the cancellation of the United States from the Paris accord, President Donald J. Trump rejoined the agreement under Vice President Joe Biden.
Although leaders made big contracts in Paris, nations need to take more actions to stave off the worst effects of climate change. At COP26, nations pledged to be more ambitious in Glasgow, and some have been. The United Nations reported recently that only about two dozen countries have followed through on their commitments.
Many world leaders, scientists, and activists agree that more ambition is needed even as nations begin to reduce their carbon footprints.
COP26 in Glasgow
COP26 produced the Glasgow Pact. It is an agreement among 200 nations. In a way to limit global temperature rise to under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), nations are asked to “revisit and strengthen” their emissions targets by the end of 2022.
It is noticed that developed nations have failed to meet a decade-old promise to help deliver $100 billion annually by 2020, urging them to “at least double” finance for adaptation by 2025.
On the sidelines of the formal negotiations, many of the agreements were struck by countries and corporations. More than 100 countries agreed to reduce methane emissions, a potent planet-warming gas, by 30 per cent this decade. Another 130 countries vowed to prevent deforestation by 2030 and commit a huge fund toward the effort. Dozens of other countries promised to eliminate their coal plants eventually and sales of gasoline-powered vehicles in the upcoming years.
COP26: Level of Execution
The United States passed a law last year to contribute $370 billion to drive the country away from fossil fuels and depend more on GHG emissions-free energies like solar, wind, and nuclear power. It is expected to get to its goal of cutting emissions at least 50 percentage below 2005 levels by 2025.
Does the 1.5-degree target matter?
It’s the threshold beyond which scientists say the likelihood of disastrous climate impacts — like severe heat waves, water scarcity, drop in crop production and collapse of the ecosystem— is relatively going up. Our mother earth has warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius.
Compelling global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires all nations to cut emissions faster and more profoundly than they already are doing.
Loss and damage
Loss and damage related to climate change the countries are passing on now are relatively high nowadays. But cannot acclimatize to impoverish, developing nations that have contributed the least to global warming. It’s a changing sanctum for the above 30 million people in Pakistan displaced by floods. Or they’re shifting communities in Fiji from aquatic plages because of rising waterbodies.
The Economic support during such calamities was discussed at COP27.
What is at stake at COP27?
This conference test whether the international community can respond to the rising urgency of the crisis.
The environmental activist and policy analyst Alden Meyer, who has attended 25 of the 26 climate change conferences, says negotiations must shift from haggling over legal terms to helping countries meet their emission pledges by the end of the year to prevent more catastrophes and protect the most vulnerable.