You cannot choose between 1.5 degrees and loss and damage — the warning from Cop27
Environment — di Tommaso Perrone
The legacy of Cop27 is bittersweet, because mitigation cannot be traded off against the loss and damage fund. The final comment.
You cannot choose between 1.5 degrees and loss and damage — the warning from Cop27
The legacy of Cop27 is bittersweet, because mitigation cannot be traded off against the loss and damage fund. The final comment.
- Cop27 adopted a plan for the creation of a fund for losses and damages, loss and damage, suffered by the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis
- However, it made no progress on mitigation, that is, on cutting CO2 emissions
- The need is to unite the global north and south towards a decarbonisation of the economy
With the gavel struck at around 4:20 in the morning, Egyptian time, in the night between Saturday and Sunday, the president of Cop27 and Egyptian Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, ratified the adoption of the document that lays the groundwork for the creation of a fund for the losses and damages suffered by the countries hardest hit by the climate crisis: this is the "loss and damage" fund. A decision that formally establishes the issue of reparations as the third pillar of climate negotiations, alongside mitigation and adaptation. A historic result that places the first essential piece of a thirty-year battle for climate justice carried forward by activists from around the world, united, as well as by officials and delegates from global south countries — that part of the world least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, yet most vulnerable to the extreme consequences of global warming.
"We have fought for 30 years, holding our position, and today in Sharm el-Sheikh this journey has reached its first great positive milestone," stated Pakistan's Climate Minister, Sherry Rehman, during her address at the closing plenary. And turning to Shoukry, she added: "President, you promised an implementation Cop and you have delivered an implementation Cop. I congratulate you."
A clear-cut speech from the Pakistani minister — a positive assessment of the Egyptian presidency's work, which had thus responded to her country's need for assistance. Last August, Pakistan experienced and endured one of the worst disasters in its history, with floods and inundations made extreme by global warming that caused more than 1,700 deaths. More than 20 million people required humanitarian aid, while damages were calculated at over 30 billion dollars. A tragedy that undoubtedly drove the delegates of the global south to stand united and present a common front to secure the adoption of this fund at Cop27.
How the adoption of a loss and damage fund at Cop27 came about
A success, yes, but one considered partial by many countries — particularly those of the global north — who felt that not enough had been done to take equally important decisions on the issue of mitigation, that is, the reduction of CO2 emissions: in practice, the only true cause of the rise in average global temperature. Among the most critical voices was that of Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice-President and European Union Commissioner for Climate.
In the hours leading up to the final decision, the EU's lead negotiator had accepted the proposal to establish a loss and damage fund while stating that he was not convinced by the instrument, because creating a fund takes time — and filling it with money takes even longer. The donor base, however, would need to be broadened, to include those nations still classified as "developing" under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Unfccc) adopted in 1992, but which have since become some of the world's most prosperous economies and among the largest contributors to current emissions. China, for instance.
This was an attempt that was intended, by design, to break the bloc formed by developing countries together with Beijing. It was an attempt that backfired, and instead saw the industrialised countries succumb to the demands of the most vulnerable. Not only that. There was even a risk of backsliding on the 1.5-degree target, due to pressure from oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, ever more brazen in its attempts.
#COP27 is in overtime. The EU is united in our ambition to move forward and build on what we agreed in Glasgow. Our message to partners is clear: we cannot accept that 1.5C dies here and today.
It was at this point that Timmermans, on Saturday morning, decided to raise his voice and bang his fists on the table to stress that if emissions are not cut, adaptation strategies and compensation would become useless — impossible to manage, because the damage would grow ever more severe and deadly. "True friends are true friends when they also tell you things you wouldn't want to hear," Timmermans then said in plenary. Almost a dig at Shoukry and his approach, which many veterans judged confused and inadequate. A clear, didactic speech despite evident exhaustion, which brought attention back to the warnings from science.
Without mitigation there is no adaptation, let alone loss and damage reparations
The European Union, the United Kingdom and other states would have liked the final text of Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh to include 2025 as the year by which global emissions should have peaked, along with a clear reference to a decline in — if not an outright abandonment of — all fossil fuels, not just coal. Without these explicit references, it becomes difficult to meet any target for containing global warming. Today, in fact, the rise in average global temperature already stands at around 1.2 degrees, and given that in recent years we have increased greenhouse gas emissions rather than reducing them, it is easy to imagine that in the near future we will not be able to do what was required plus what we have still failed to do.
A position shared by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, who has never used measured words when calling on the international community for greater action. His were the words delivered during the opening plenary, in which he compared humanity's trajectory to that of a car racing at full speed down a highway towards climate hell.
This time Guterres's words fully reflect that bittersweet mix. The words of someone who knows that with the adoption of the loss and damage fund, an important page in the history of climate negotiations has been written. A result no other Cop has ever achieved. But Guterres is also aware that nothing is yet being done to lift the foot off the accelerator: "Cop27 has taken important steps towards [climate] justice. It is clearly not enough, but it is a necessary political signal to rebuild trust" between the global north and south, and above all to rebuild public trust in the negotiating process itself. For this reason Guterres, speaking to the British daily the Guardian, added that "there is no alternative to avoiding catastrophe other than the two sides [industrialised and developing countries] reaching a historic pact. Because given the current situation, we are all doomed."
This "African Cop", as Shoukry described it, was just one piece in the history of climate conferences. A piece that placed the consequences rather than the causes of global warming at its centre, and that addressed the need to adapt to a climate that has already changed. This is because Egypt and other African countries bear an infinitesimally small responsibility for the current concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, while they are among the most vulnerable to the consequences of the climate crisis. The hope is that it proves to be the piece needed to bring the conversation back to a balanced footing at the geopolitical level, to restore confidence in a process that in recent years had lost its authority because large sections of the public considered it pointless.
Cop27 gave a voice back to billions of people who, in any other international context, have no possibility of speaking out.