Here are four contrasting newspaper reviews of the ending of COP27.
The Times
At least the Cop27 climate change conference in Egypt did not end in stalemate and recriminations. After frantic efforts by officials working beyond the deadline and important concessions by the richer countries, a text was agreed that sets up a fund to help the world’s least developed nations pay for the economic losses caused by climate change. It foiled attempts to roll back commitments made last year in Glasgow. And for the first time the conference committed nations to a move to renewable energy, though this was watered down.
That said, the conference achieved only the bare minimum to keep the attempt to hold global warming to 1.5C on track. There was no timetable or even assurance that polluting fuels would be phased down by all countries. There was no outline of how and when the money should be paid into the fund for poorer countries. And, most egregiously, the conference allowed China to continue evading responsibility to pay into the fund, although it is now the world’s largest polluter, is its second largest economy and has been tardy in doing anything to curb its huge emissions from coal.
China, like many of the developing nations, wants to “blame” western industrialised nations and tar them with historic responsibility for polluting the planet. China’s aim is to be considered still as a “developing” nation, despite its current wealth. There was a stench of anti-colonial rhetoric in Sharm el-Sheikh, with gleeful finger-pointing at America, historically the main producer of carbon dioxide. This may be true, but the only way forward is with co-operation between rich and poor nations, especially in the development of green technology.
The West has been active in cutting its own emissions, especially Britain, as the graphic shows, whereas China now emits more CO2 per capita than Britain and is more likely to accelerate climate change. China has the money and the responsibility to help small nations, some of which may soon disappear under the rising seas.
The other issue left unresolved is how the “loss and damage” fund is to be administered. What must not happen is that a large pot of money is set up for any small country to help itself: an obvious invitation to corruption. The US wanted a “mosaic” of donors, drawn from rich and poor countries contributing both private and state funds. That should still be the approach, even if the global sum is now pledged in block grants.
The poorer nations, championed by Pakistan, insisted on a guarantee of help. But however many trillions may be on offer, unless the developing nations take active steps to reduce their own emissions, global temperatures will go on rising.
The West was right to make concessions to secure agreement: it, too, will benefit if irreversible climate change can be averted. But the lack of any new promises by the 196 countries on reducing carbon emissions is deeply disappointing. There also needs to be a proper cost/benefit analysis of net zero and what the world is trying to achieve. That would include proper scrutiny of what is already being spent and why, with a more credible set of policies, properly explained to taxpayers, to meet the 2050 target. There is much to do next year in Abu Dhabi. Otherwise, climate campaigners may resort to ever more extreme tactics.
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The Guardian
The Cop process often seems to encapsulate the broader global reaction to climate breakdown. Leaders make grand but vague pledges of action; fossil fuel lobbyists (600 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, this year) schmooze and press governments into maintaining the status quo; and scientists, civil society groups and those most affected by the climate emergency have to scream to be heard at all. The results are predictable: indecision, evasion, obstruction and buck-passing followed by desperately needed – but desperately inadequate – last-minute action.
Given the utter disarray evident as late as Saturday evening, the final outcome of Cop27 is a relief, and in one regard even a cause for celebration. The agreement to establish a loss and damage fund is a historic breakthrough, demanded for three decades by developing countries. The devil will as usual lie in the detail: who will fund it? But it should help to provide the financial assistance poorer nations need for rescuing and rebuilding as extreme weather pummels their populations and infrastructure. And it comes despite the sustained opposition of the US and (until the eleventh hour) the EU.
The language on reforming international financial institutions is a real achievement too and could, for example, help developing countries invest in renewables. Again, detail is critical – what changes will be delivered, and how quickly? – but fundamental reform is overdue. Yet these gains come alongside grave disappointments. As Alok Sharma, president of last year’s Cop26, noted, it was a battle to maintain the commitments made in Glasgow, never mind build on them. “Peaking emissions by 2025 is not in this text. Follow-through on the phasedown of coal is not in this text. The phasedown of all fossil fuels is not in this text,” he said. The loss and damage fund is necessary, but amounts to mitigation, instead of prevention; equivalent to a whipround to buy a neighbour new clothes after watching as their house burnt down – because you dropped a lit match.
Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister and president of Cop27, says that the 1.5C temperature limit remains within reach. Technically, that is right. But politically, it is not. Global emissions would have to fall by 50% by 2030; they are currently setting new records. Since next year’s meeting will be hosted by a petrostate – the United Arab Emirates – few are optimistic about the prospects for progress there. Yet if the fossil fuel giants bear much of the responsibility, others too have failed to offer leadership. The EU could have led the way with revisions to member states’ nationally determined contributions, setting out what each country will do. The UK is offering new licences for North Sea exploration.
Over three decades, the international political system has repeatedly demonstrated its frustrating, heartbreaking and almost bizarre inability to act on a problem that has, at its heart, a simple solution: ending our dependence on fossil fuels. The most powerful nations have failed to show the way. This year’s milestone achievement – the new fund – is essentially a victory for civil society and collective action among developing countries. If, as one climate envoy suggested, it shows that “we can do the impossible”, it is these actors that must take the credit and that are providing true global leadership. Cop27 shows that they will have to continue to fight for every modest step forward, and for every fraction of a degree that can be shaved off temperature rises.
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The Telegraph
The UN’s Climate Change Conference in Egypt was the 27th such gathering since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Then, the science of global warming was in its infancy, but world leaders were sufficiently alarmed to commit to a massive programme of financial transfers to countries likely to be worst affected. Thirty years on, a deal was struck at Sharm el-Sheikh on Sunday to establish a dedicated “loss and damage fund” of the sort that never materialised after Rio. It is a triumph of hope over expectation to think this agreement is any more likely to be fulfilled.
The past fortnight’s jamboree in Egypt has been dominated less by arguments over carbon levels than by who will pay for the damage caused by climate change. Developed countries such as Britain will be expected to make substantial contributions to the fund, based on their past industrial activity, even though the biggest emitters are countries like China and India. They have made no commitment to pay, nor do they propose to reduce emissions any time soon, rendering most of the Cop targets set in Paris a few years ago unachievable.
Since most scientists do not think temperatures can be held down, the ramifications could be considerable and preparations will need to be made. For instance, droughts and famines in sub-Saharan Africa could lead to migration on a scale never seen before. Countries unwilling to contribute to mitigation measures need to consider the implications not for today, but 30 years hence.
Although there was agreement on establishing a fund, the details have yet to be resolved. The most controversial decisions have been kicked into next year, when a “transitional committee” is expected to make recommendations for countries to adopt at the Cop28, a year from now.
They would cover “identifying and expanding sources of funding”: in other words, who will pay, and how much, has yet to be settled.
The Cop went no further in seeking to reduce carbon emissions than last year’s in Glasgow, with resistance coming from European countries facing an energy crisis this winter because of the Ukraine war. Countries such as Germany, far from turning away from fossil fuels, are even reopening coal-fired power plants to keep the lights on.
As often happens with these meetings, the talks went to the wire, with last-minute negotiations concluding with an outburst of mutual back-slapping for what was dubbed a “historic” agreement. The same was said in Rio in 1992.
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The Economist
The annual un climate talks are often compared to a circus or a battleground. This year’s summit, held at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, was particularly shambolic and grumpy. Even the supply of food for delegates was fitful initially.
The talks had been due to finish on November 18th. By the wee hours of November 20th, they were still going. In the end, it was sleep deprivation and weariness, more than any grand political breakthrough, that forced a result.
The final text, as at previous summits, was inadequate to the challenge. But the talks—known in the jargon as cop27—seem to have tipped the balance of debate on two important points. The first is that, after three decades of ignoring them, rich countries are beginning to give a more sympathetic hearing to demands from poorer ones for money to help them repair the damages wreaked by a warming world. The second is the idea that taking climate change seriously will require tinkering with the global financial system. Once a niche idea, it too is gathering momentum.
Start with the compensation claims. The idea of a “loss and damage” fund was first floated in 1991 when Vanuatu, a low-lying island nation in the Pacific, suggested the creation of an insurance scheme, under the auspices of the un, to help pay for the consequences of rising sea levels. For thirty years such demands were rebuffed. Leaders of rich countries, and their lawyers, would not give any airtime to anything that might suggest liability for climate change.
But twelve months ago in Scotland, that country’s first minister promised £2m ($2.4m) to the cause. Against the scale of the problem, of course, that is a comically derisory sum. But it was a first hint that the tide might be turning. Earlier this year, unusually heavy monsoon rains caused more than $30bn of damage and financial losses in Pakistan, equivalent to nearly 9% of the country’s gdp. Natural climatic variations, notably an ocean-cooling phenomenon known as “La Niña,” were partly responsible. But the rains were also made heavier by the effects of greenhouse gases.
The floods were seized upon by delegates at cop27 as demonstrating the need for rich countries to loosen their purse-strings. A scattering of promises made by other European governments on the sidelines at Sharm el-Sheikh brought the total to a still-paltry €238m ($246m). Most of the money—€170m—was pledged by Germany. There was more to come from the main event. Bolstered by support from the European Union, the g77 group of developing nations obtained a promise from delegates to set up a new UN fund, the details of which will be agreed by November next year. In other words, the summit created a coffer, but it is not yet clear how much cash donors will cough up to fill it.
There was plenty of squabbling over who would benefit. The eu wants most of the money to go to “particularly vulnerable” countries rather than developing ones, which under the outdated definitions of the un climate convention include such notably non-poor places as China and Singapore. (Singaporeans are more than twice as rich as citizens of the eu.) The question of who would pay also ruffled feathers. Again the eu needled China, now the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, as the bloc sought a donor base that extended beyond the usual group of rich nations. Decisions made now “must take into account the economic situation of countries in 2022 and not in 1992”, said Frans Timmermans, the eu’s chief negotiator.
To some extent, all this is immaterial. Few believe that a un-sponsored “loss and damage” fund will ever transfer the hundreds of billions that would be needed to offset the damage done by climate change. That is tacitly acknowledged in the cop27 text itself, which drops several hints that money for loss and damage could be found in what Mr Timmermans called a “mosaic” of sources in existing global, regional and national financial institutions.
With that in mind, the conference seized on a set of proposals by the Barbadian prime minister Mia Mottley. Known as the Bridgetown Initiative, after the capital city of the Caribbean nation, the idea is to overhaul the system of international financial institutions—chiefly the International Monetary Fund (imf) and the World Bank. The proposal most likely to succeed is to expand the lending capacity of the World Bank, and other development banks, by allowing them to take greater financial risks. Advocates hope an additional $1trn could be unlocked without any shareholders (America is the largest for the World Bank) having to put in any more money. The extra financial risk is justified, advocates say, when set against the harm that climate change will cause.
Such ideas were starting to gain traction before they popped up in Sharm el-Sheikh. In July a report commissioned by the g20, a club of rich-ish countries, called for changes to the rules governing multilateral development banks, such as relying less on the opinions of credit-rating agencies when deciding whether to make a loan. American officials already seem frustrated at the World Bank’s lack of urgency over climate change. In October Janet Yellen, America’s Treasury secretary, said that the lender should find ways to “stretch” its balance sheet and asked the World Bank to come up with a way to do so by December.
More controversial is a proposal to set up a new Global Climate Mitigation Trust at the imf, the international lender of last resort. Ms Mottley’s suggestion is that a $500bn issue of special drawing rights (sdrs), a kind of quasi-currency created by the fund, could be used to capitalise this new operation. That funding would then be combined with money raised from private investors. The trust would then lend at an attractive rate to projects in poor countries that reduce emissions. Again, this proposal would not require any further commitments from the imf’s biggest shareholders depending, as it does, on creating new money.
It may still struggle. sdr issuance has been historically rare, reserved for moments of acute financial crisis rather than for chronic challenges like climate change. While a new round of sdrs would not need congressional support, it would require the approval of the us Treasury and Ms Yellen, in October, said now was not the time for further issuance. There is some scope for redirecting existing sdrs: during the pandemic rich countries pledged $100bn of sdrs issued to a Resilience and Sustainability Trust, but so far only about $80bn has arrived.
Even so, Mrs Mottley’s Initiative has won support from France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, who said in his address to cop27 that he had called on the imf, World Bank and the oecd to propose new ways of channelling funding to poor countries by spring 2023. He suggested that the World Bank and imf needed new rules to grapple with climate change, which could include forms of debt relief that would suspend payments in the event of a climate-related disaster.
The closing text adopted at cop27 called on multilateral development banks and other international financial institutions to “reform their practices and priorities” to channel money where it is most needed. It also encouraged such organisations to “define a new vision” with “channels and instruments that are fit for the purpose of adequately addressing the global climate emergency”. Though they were not mentioned specifically, this language nods towards some increasingly popular financial wheezes, such as “debt for nature swaps” that offer poor countries debt relief in exchange for committing to conservation.
The discord, as ever, was in the details. Poorer countries always ask for more money at climate summits. This year they sounded even angrier than usual. The rich world’s failure to disburse the annual $100bn of climate finance promised at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 amounted to an “egregious and unexplained default”, said William Ruto, Kenya’s president. (No more than $83bn has arrived in any single year.) Mr Ruto’s choice of words, casting the rich world as a recalcitrant debtor, was deliberate. Rich countries often chide poor-country governments for failing to pay their debts, and donors have often criticised Kenya’s ruling class for stealing money intended for noble purposes.
The tussle for money takes place as rich-country taxpayers are feeling squeezed, thanks to inflation and the after-effects of covid-19. Yet the situation in poor countries is much worse: national debt burdens ballooned during the pandemic, and this will make it harder to tackle climate change.
Mitigation will require huge investments, not only in renewables but in building electricity grids and providing farmers with alternatives to chopping down rainforests. Adapting to a warmer planet will require vast sums for building flood defences and heat-proofing infrastructure. Making economies more resilient in this way will cost more than $200bn a year by 2030, by one estimate. This money must somehow be found even as a strong dollar and soaring bills for imported food and energy threaten to spark a new emerging-market debt crisis.
Loss and damage from climate-related disasters can drive poorer countries even deeper into debt, as Pakistan discovered this year. Without access to affordable insurance against such risks, Caribbean and Pacific island states have to borrow when a catastrophe hits and try to repay the money when times are good. By one estimate, countries that are at higher risk of natural disasters already have debt-to-national income ratios that are 11.2 percentage points higher than those which are less vulnerable. That will only rise as droughts, floods and storms become more common, severe or both.
Mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage are inextricably linked. Faster, more ambitious decarbonisation will reduce the bill for adaptation. Better mitigation and adaptation will mean that less money has to be spent rebuilding after disasters. But the negotiations that unfolded in Sharm el-Sheikh were proof that the world has not yet worked out how to tackle all three simultaneously.
After the final decision had been gavelled through, Alok Sharma—the British president of last year’s climate talks—hailed the creation of a loss and damage fund but regretted that more had not been accomplished: “Emissions peaking before 2025…Not in this text. Clear follow-through on the phase down of coal: not in this text. A clear commitment to phase out all fossil fuels: not in this text.”