Several world leaders will gather in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, starting November 6, for two weeks of climate talks just as nations fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions amid the global energy crisis, war in Europe and rising inflation.
The United Nations convenes this conference every year.
In last year’s edition Scotlandthe countries brought together agreed that additional measures must be taken immediately to prevent a dangerous rise in global temperatures.
Unfortunately, those quick actions have not been finalized and the consequences of climate change, such as deadly floods PakistanDrought United States of Americafamine in Africa and the heat waves come EuropeThey are of alarming clarity.
Tensions between polluting rich countries and poor nations that suffer most from the climate consequences on the question of who should pay the costs of global warming should mark this conference, known as COP27.
When will COP27 be held?
The official dates of the conference are from 6 to 18 November. However, the negotiations stand out for being controversial, so they should be prolonged.
Where will COP27 be?
The meetings will take place in Sharm el Sheikhan Egyptian resort town on the Red Sea coast.
The event will take place in two main locations: the blue zone and the green zone. Official negotiations will take place in the blue zone, based in the Sharm el-Sheikh international convention center south of the center of the place.
That space will be managed by the United Nations and is subject to international law.
Across the street, in the Parque de la Paz botanical garden, will be the green zone.
This area will be responsible Egyptian government and will be open to the public.
What is COP27?
COP is the English acronym for Conference of the Parties, and the “parties” are the 197 nations which signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992.
The 197 parties, including the United States, have ratified the treaty that seeks to avoid a “anthropogenic interference in the climate system ”and stabilize the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The United Nations body responsible for climate calls these governments once a year to meet to discuss possible options for tackling climate change together.
This is the occasion number 27 where the signatory countries of the convention meet … hence the name, COP27.
What is the goal of COP27?
The key focus of this year’s conference is controversial.
Rich countries want to focus on strategies to help developing countries reduce their use of fossil fuels and the transition to renewable energy.
Developing countries seek a compromise on the money they need cope with disasters who have suffered from the climate.
In particular, poor countries want to new background covering concepts such as relocating vulnerable cities or helping to compensate for lost economic growth due to increasingly severe floods, storms and heatwaves.
Industrialized nations, including the United States, have expressed opposition to a new fund, in part because they fear legal responsibility for the damage caused by climate change, which is growing at an impressive rate.
This is the first climate summit held in Africa since 2016.
Many diplomats have expressed the hope that it will be a ‘African COP‘not only for its location, but also for its focus, as African nations face some of the most severe impacts of climate change.
Who will participate in COP27?
It is expected that more than 35,000 delegates attend the event, including the president Joe Biden and more than 100 heads of state, according to the UN climate body.
It’s a smaller group than last year’s summit in Glasgow, which brought together 120 world leaders and more than 40,000 registered attendees.
However, for a year in which no official decision expected transcendent, it is an important number.
What happened in previous COP meetings?
The first COP was held in Berlin in 1995, after a critical mass of nations ratified the Climate Convention.
It was a watershed and laid the foundations for, two years later, the Kyoto protocolwhich at the time was a revolutionary global agreement on the climate issue.
The problem is that the Kyoto Protocol only established the commitment of rich and industrialized countries to limit and reduce emissions, while developing countries, including major emerging economies such as China, India and Brazilthey were only asked to reduce emissions on a voluntary basis.
The United States Senate opposed the protocol by unanimous vote, as did the president George W. Bush, which marked the beginning of almost two decades of confrontation with the aim of identifying the nations with greater responsibility for solving the problem of climate change.
In 2015 the government of Barack Obama ended this stalemate and led nearly 200 countries to sign the innovative Paris Agreement.
For the first time, both rich and poor countries have decided to act, albeit at different rates, to tackle the problems of climate change.
The United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement during the president’s term Donald Trump, but he joined Biden’s leadership.
Although several leaders agreed on huge commitments in Paris, the countries did not take sufficient measures to prevent the worst effects of climate change.
In Glasgow last year, nations promised to be more ambitious and some have kept that promise.
Unfortunately, a recent UN report revealed this only about 24 countries They went one step further and pledged to apply stricter measures.
Scientists, activists and leaders in many countries agree that more ambition is needed, but countries have already begun to implement their plans to reduce emissions.
What happened at COP26 in Glasgow?
COP26 led to the Glasgow Climate Pact, an agreement between nearly 200 nations.
It “calls” on countries to “review and strengthen” their emissions targets by the end of 2022 in order to align them with the goal of limiting the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-2022 levels. Industrial Revolution.
He also pointed out that rich countries have failed to deliver on their 10-year pledge to help provide $ 100 billion annually in climate finance by 2020, urging them to “at least duplicater ”their support for adaptation by 2025.
In addition to formal negotiations, several countries and companies have concluded dozens of agreements.
More than 100 countries have decided to reduce their emissions of methane, a powerful gas that warms the planet, by 30 percent over this decade.
Another 130 countries have pledged to stop deforestation by 2030 and allocate billions of dollars to this goal.
Dozens of other countries have promised to phase out their coal-fired power plants and reduce the sale of gasoline vehicles over the next few decades.
Did the countries do what they promised at COP26?
No.
However, some have begun to do so.
The United States, for example, this year passed a law that calls for an investment of $ 370,000 million to stop the country from using fossil fuels and adopt emission-free energy, such as solar, wind and nuclear power.
These measures are expected to help the United States move closer (though not quite attaining) its goal of reducing emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2025.
Why is the 1.5 degree goal important?
It’s important because, beyond that threshold, scientists say the likelihood of catastrophic climate impacts (such as deadly heat waves, water shortages, crop failures and ecosystem collapse) increases dramatically.
The planet has already warmed up 1.1 degrees Centigrade.
If we are to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, all countries must reduce their emissions faster and more than they do today.
What is at stake at COP27?
This conference will test the international community and reveal whether it can respond to the growing urgency of the crisis.
Alden Meyer, an environmental activist and political analyst who has participated in 25 of the past 26 COPs, noted that global negotiations must evolve from discussions of the verbiage of legal treaties to real help so that countries meet their emissions commitment in time and thus avoid more climate disasters and manage to protect the most vulnerable nations.
“COPs have a culture of winners and losers, of games of threat, haggling and negotiation,” Meyer explained.
“It is still unclear whether those who come to the COPs are also those who have the powers needed to transform culture, get to work and ensure they get accelerated results for the transformation that needs to happen.”
(Alanah Sarginson / The New York Times)
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Source: Clarin