What happened at COP27?
A rundown of major happenings at what was supposed to be the "Implementation COP."
Lots of climate diplomacy and some policy took place at various venues in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in the past two weeks. Negotiations have reached overtime, spilling into Saturday, without a clear outcome agreement (more on the final agreement in the next edition).
In this COP, ‘loss and damage’ became a commonplace utterance. Appeals by poor countries finally pushed some rich, historically high-emitting countries to pledge $$ into a common pool from which capital-poor countries can seek funds for climate adaptation, mitigation and clean energy transition. Biden visited for 3 hours, Modi did not, except briefly on a rectangular screen. Amongst diplomats were 636 representatives from the fossil fuel industry (Them!) and only about 250 Indigenous delegates.
Below are some key highlights and takeaways from COP27, save any agreements:
We have all but given up on the target of curbing global warming at 1.5 degree Celsius (The Guardian, Bloomberg).
The US EPA has announced more stringent measures to curb methane emissions across oil and gas supply chains in the country, boosting their commitment to the Global Methane Pledge (a global effort to curb emissions of the potent greenhouse gas 30 percent by 2030).
Europe’s push to expand gas infrastructure in the African continent is being highly criticised.
Biden touted his administration’s Inflation Reduction Act and pledged $100 million to the Adaptation Fund (sans implementation plan). Pledged contributions by some European countries are illustrated below.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s “Bridgetown Agenda,” which lays out how banks should be overhauled to provide more climate finance to better serve crisis-affected lower-income countries, has been well received and may be adopted by the IMF.
Food and agriculture policy was also seriously on the agenda for the first time, with a day of the Conference solely dedicated to it. This is crucial as IPCC estimated that agricultural land productivity has already decreased by 21% with the baseline scenario with no climate change.
Climate solutions at the COP included bamboo, green hydrogen and blue carbon - investment into these solutions, natural and technological, is a key opportunity.
According to the Women's Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), COP27 has the lowest concentrations of women seen at the UN climate summits to date.
Even with the best representation to date, Indigenous delegates are still vying to be heard in decision-making dialogues.
The 27th Conference of Parties, where ideally we should not still be talking of “we must do something” - rather, we should be hearing phrases like “we ARE doing a and b and z and everything in between towards climate change” - there are only promises and pledges, often without pathways to the goalpost. This past January, while lecturing on COP26, I somewhat optimistically relayed to the students, “At least we are headed in the correct direction.” This seems to hold true but we need more.
Related News (What Isn’t) and Other Bits
The world population surpassed the 8 billion mark on November 15 (UN). A reminder that there is enough for everyone’s needs but not enough for billionaires’ greed (yes, I am restating the Gandhian saying.)
Amidst the havoc caused by Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, Molly Taft (Earther) and Emily Atkins (Heated) have produced tallies of his climate impact (unsurprisingly, it’s bad).
Media, Art and Literature
For the first time on this newsletter (and definitely not the last), here’s one of my favorite songs by The 1975 (they all are tbh). Mentioned - ‘fossil fuels’. On their ongoing tour, Matty Healy (lead singer) lamented having to sing it in 2022 with as much relevance as when he first wrote it.
Yes, we all read about the tomato soup - Van Gogh rendezvous. Though I am in no way a proponent of the act itself, the message by the Just Stop Oil protesters did cause me to reconsider what we value, and should value, as a society.
Top of my reading stack: The Ministry of the Future. I’m only about 50 pages in, and my oh my, the ‘fiction’ is real enough to be real. Reading this with my climate bookclub at Grist/Fix and can’t wait to discuss it in detail (also a near-future newsletter)!
From A Member of the TIERRA Community (In this case, me)
I am awed, aggreived, enraged every time I witness a leaf dancing in spirals to join her dew-speckled kin on the ground, every time I read of a whole species (a whole existence) gone, each instance when I see money trumping over planetary well-being. Call me soft (call me moss), call me idealistic (call me nature), but existing in this moment in humanity feels like a call to action - to help Mama Earth, to help her children, in any and all capacity I have. And so, I have dedicated this existence to her.
After this revelation about my purpose, I had another - in Hindu mythology, Sita, after her simple, fruit-full life, went back into the depths of Mother Earth/धरती में समा गयी सिताI Yes, I now know it’s a metaphor for death, though that went into the vision board for this existence of mine.