COP27 reaches a final agreement in extremis that manages to save losses and damages

• Following an agonizing end to the negotiations, the international community recognizes the need to create a fund for the loss and damage suffered by the countries most vulnerable to climate change.
• Civil society ensures that their demand is heard and demands that the committee for the design of this fund have the participation of the social platforms present in the negotiations.
• Regarding mitigation, the final text has no progress with respect to COP26 in Glasgow, so Ecologists in Action points out that it is inadmissible that a year has been lost for the fight against the climate emergency.
• Adaptation financing is the package that has gone most unnoticed, where the results have no progress and are unable to determine a roadmap to duplicate the funding targets agreed in Glasgow.

COP27 was conceived as a summit of confidence and the implementation – or implementation – of the Paris Agreements and the Glasgow Pact. However, for two weeks the negotiations have been complex: without a clear facilitating role of the Egyptian Presidency, with hardly any drafts that advance the state of the discussions, and with information of blockages and very different points of view in relevant aspects.

So much so that, in the last 24 hours of the negotiations and already in the discount time, the EU has come to raise the possibility of a no agreement and its abandonment of the summit before accepting that the ambition of 1.5 ºC is lowered.

It also seemed impossible for the US to give in to the creation of the fund for loss and damage. However, the Parties have managed to save an agreement that, according to Ecologists in Action, “includes the demand of civil society to create such a fund – aimed at the most vulnerable countries to climate change – but has quite worrying elements to advance in the climate fight that, in addition, widen the gap between the global North and the South”.

This is the assessment of Ecologists in Action on the highlights of the final agreement:

1. Loss and Damage Fund. Although throughout the negotiations none of the proposals on the table seemed to satisfy the different countries, the final wording of the agreement has managed to include this fund – demanded by civil society for more than a year – as well as other financial mechanisms. The countries that have historically contributed most to the increase in emissions are the ones who will have to nourish this economic fund. A decision that has been taken despite pressure from some countries such as the US that has tried to block it.

Despite the approval of these mechanisms, it should be noted that the polarization and slowness of the discussions has prevented progress in the methodology and in the design of next steps for their rapid implementation. The final text envisages the creation of a transition committee that will have to clearly define the process for financing the fund and the criteria for the selection of projects eligible for such funding.

The numerous actions held during COP27 by civil society have contributed to unblocking this agreement that was expected to be complex or impossible after listening to the words of representatives of many of the countries of the global North.

For Javier Andaluz, spokesman for Ecologists in Action, “this has been bittersweet news. Although this tool will allow to meet the demands of the most vulnerable countries, it also leaves to the transitional committee for the definition of the fund tasks that should have been closed at this summit. Environmental organizations, indigenous, gender and youth platforms demand that we be taken into account in the design of the next steps.”

2. Mitigation. The measures on reducing emissions are undoubtedly the most disadvantaged in this agreement. The Egyptian presidency has shown no interest in moving forward in this direction; in fact, it has limited itself to repeating what was already agreed in Glasgow and has not presented any progress on which to discuss. For the environmental organization, this represents the loss of a year of work and shows the inability of the COPs to include the obligation to adhere to the latest IPCC reports.

Also, during these two weeks in Egypt, the opposition of many countries to take additional measures to face the climate emergency has been clear. Public statements and proposals for new texts have shown attempts by some Parties to relax emission reduction measures or avoid any mention of the 1.5°C target.

As was already the case in Glasgow, the inclusion of a mention of the need to move away from fossil fuels has been a major stumbling block. At COP26 last year, it was possible to include this mention, although only in recommendation mode and without mentioning all fossil fuels: “increase your efforts to abandon inefficient coal subsidies”. This time, the wording has remained intact, which means that no steps forward are taken in a crucial decade to defossilize our economies.

Again, all these debates have distracted and prevented consensus on a stronger text that allows progress towards the end of all fossil fuels and a development model based on the destruction of the planet, facilitating access to renewable technologies for most of the planet that is affected by an energy crisis, ecological and social.

In addition, COP27 has been incapable, again, of discarding false solutions such as nuclear energy (an energy that is too expensive, dangerous and radioactive) by including the mention of “low-emission energies” at the same level as renewable energies.

Sharm el-Sheikh’s lack of ambition shows the enormous price of reaching agreements by consensus in negotiations. It also shows the power of the big oil countries, which avoid at all costs mentioning the necessary disappearance of all fossil fuels in economies before the end of the century.

Irene Rubiera, spokesperson for Ecologists in Action, said: “Countries in the global North – such as the EU or the US – need to increase their ambition to reduce emissions, while developing countries with emerging economies cannot shirk their responsibility to drive an energy transition that does not repeat the same mistakes as those made by the global North.”

3. Adaptation and financing. Ecologists in Action wants to remind countries that “it is difficult to have credibility in fulfilling financing promises when they have not yet been able to mobilize the goal of 100,000 million dollars committed in the Green Climate Fund.” For the environmental organization, agreeing to the creation of an adaptation fund is a big step, but it is necessary to ensure that the financing is new, additional and sufficient.

In the midst of all the COP27 negotiations, the inability of countries to set a new financing figure for the Green Climate Fund has gone unnoticed. Moreover, for the first time the mention of private financing such as Bloomberg Philanthropies appears in the final documents of a summit.

Marta García Pallarés, spokesperson for Ecologists in Action, has pointed out that “the incorporation of private financing opens a bad precedent in international agreements, it is the countries who should be represented in these negotiations and not the corporations. In addition, countries have the legislative capacity to establish sufficient fiscal measures so that these companies – largely responsible for the emergency – pay for the damages caused.”

On the other hand, the final documents do not contain a clear roadmap to ensure the doubling of the financing commitments agreed in Glasgow, and leaves it to the mere voluntariness of the countries that this objective is met in the coming years.

In terms of progress within the adaptation package, the Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Summit has succeeded in stabilizing the work programme on the global adaptation goal. This mechanism sets out the next steps in this area, which will continue the mandate of Glasgow and should reach conclusions at the next summit to be held in Dubai.

4. Human rights. One of the most bittersweet parts of the conclusion of the negotiations is the absence of mentions — on the operational side — of human rights. In previous drafts of the text, human rights, as well as the newly recognized right to a decent environment, did not appear. But pressure from civil society has finally managed to make these mentions appear in the final text, although only in the preambular part.

On the other hand, the demand for human rights has been central to the civil society agenda of a COP presided over by the totalitarian government of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. The slogan “without human rights there is no climate justice” as well as the demand for amnesty for political prisoners has been the protagonist of a large part of the actions, along with others on the demand for a fund for losses and damages, the increase in ambition in mitigation or the demand for climate justice.

Marta García Pallarés added: “We denounce the repression exercised by the Egyptian government against activists, political dissidents and journalists, before the COP and also during the celebration of the summit. The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms has estimated more than 800 people detained since the beginning of October to date, with an increase in the number of arrests since November 11 for an alleged call for protest in the country. We call on the international community and the UN to condemn these actions and demand that the host country release the political prisoners.”

Giving an overview of the Climate Summit that has just closed in Sharm el-Sheikh, Javier Andaluz said: “The Egyptian Presidency has shown itself incapable of making significant progress at a COP that was momentous. The breakdown of trust between countries has become evident, widening the differences between countries and jeopardizing a process that is based on their mere voluntariness. Today more than ever it is clear how far governments are from embracing scientific guidance and responding to climate justice. Civil society is the one that has risen to the challenge, while countries continue to play geopolitics at these summits.”

Source: Ecologists in Action