COP27 enters the phase of political negotiation without major progress

The debate focuses on specifying the degree of compliance with the current commitments, which everything indicates will be pending for next year

Egypt’s climate summit, COP27, has reached its halfway point without rich countries sending a clear message to developing countries about their position on the debate to compensate them for the losses and damages caused on their territory by the effects of climate change.

The so-called “technical” phase began on November 6 with the inclusion, for the first time on the agenda of a UN climate summit, of a point to decide how to finance compensation to the poorest countries for the damages suffered by the effects of climate change caused mostly by the emissions of the richest countries.

The main divergence lies in deciding through which instrument to channel these offsets: a specific one of new creation and linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or via existing mechanisms.

Developing countries are pushing for the creation of a specific fund in order to have more guarantees that there will be money earmarked specifically for loss and damage, while from the other side there is advocacy for existing instruments, such as the Green Climate Fund or the Adaptation Fund (both under the umbrella of the UNFCCC).

The argument they defend is to gain in agility, since constituting a fund of these characteristics takes years.

Loss and damage

Some states also argue that the debate on loss and damage transcends the UNFCCC because it covers other aspects such as migration or humanitarian aid, which affect other UN framework conventions.

Accepting this would open the door for compensation to fall on organizations such as, for example, the International Monetary Fund, which grants loans that generate debt, a possibility rejected by the countries of the Global South, which claim direct aid.

With this open debate, tomorrow starts the “ministerial” or “political” part without, for the moment, there being any technical document related to losses and damages on which the delegations can begin to negotiate the semicolons of what will be the final agreement of COP27, sources familiar with the situation explained to EFE.

“These two groups of countries are close to understanding each other, but they have stopped the debate until politicians arrive to see what bridges, what kind of proposals can be made to bring us closer to a solution,” according to the head of the delegation of the European Union (EU) in the COP27 negotiations, Jacob Werksman.

The special envoy of the United States for Climate, John Kerry, said that his country defends that the compensations for the damages produced by the climatic disasters are given within the framework of existing financing vehicles and that they work intensely to achieve an agreement.

Contributions to UN-sponsored funds are voluntary and the loss and damage budget could be used to finance, for example, the reconstruction of areas that may be devastated by natural disasters associated with climate change, such as floods, or the creation of early warning systems to prevent them.

Mitigation, financing and adaptation

With regard to mitigation (reduction of emissions), the debate focuses on specifying the degree of compliance with the current commitments, which everything indicates will be pending for next year, as well as on deciding the duration of the review program of the objectives that are set for periods of ten years.

In financing, the discussion revolves around the commitment to provide the Green Climate Fund with 100,000 million dollars, a goal that is expected to be achieved in 2023, a decade later than planned, and on how much to raise the objective to 2025 (there is talk of 130,000 million).

In addition, environmental organizations and the most vulnerable countries are pushing for some guarantee that 50% of this fund will go to mitigation (decarbonization) and the other 50% to adaptation (resilience to climate change).

Delegations also need to design the roadmap to implement the Glasgow decision (COP26) calling on developed countries to double contributions to the Adaptation Fund by 2025 compared to 2019.

Source: The Energy Newspaper