The UN world climate conference opened on Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to try to breathe new life into the fight against global warming and its impacts, for which the countries of the South are demanding financial compensation. , a thorny subject that will officially be on the menu of discussions.
“Let’s implement together [nos engagements]for humanity and our planet,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, who chairs COP27, told delegates from around the world.
“We must be clear, as difficult as the current moment is, inaction amounts to short-sightedness and can only delay the climate catastrophe,” said the outgoing president of the previous COP in Glasgow, Alok Sharma.
This 27th UN climate conference (COP27), brings together some 200 countries for two weeks, at the bedside of a planet hit by disasters: historic floods in Pakistan, repeated heat waves in Europe, hurricanes, fires, droughts…
Disasters for which the countries of the South are now claiming financial compensation.
This delicate issue of “loss and damage” was officially added to the agenda of discussions in Sharm el-Sheikh during the opening ceremony, whereas until then it was only to be the subject of a “dialogue”, planned until 2024.
“This inclusion on the agenda reflects a sense of solidarity and empathy for the suffering of victims of climate-induced disasters,” said Sameh Choukri.
The head of UN-Climate, Simon Stiell, described as “crucial” this question of losses and damages at the opening of the conference.
Distrust
“The success or failure of COP27 will be judged on an agreement on this loss and damage financing facility,” warned Munir Akram, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN and chairman of the G77 + China, which represents more than 130 emerging and poor countries.
The mistrust of developing countries is strong while the promise of the countries of the North to increase to 100 billion dollars per year from 2020 their aid to the countries of the South to reduce their emissions and prepare for the impacts is still not kept. .
Agreement or not on a special mechanism to finance “losses and damages” or on a new objective to take over from the 100 billion from 2025, the financing needs are counted in “billions of billions”, says AFP Michai Robertson, negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), judging that this will be impossible without the private sector.
These negotiations are taking place against the backdrop of an ever more pressing climate crisis. The fight for the climate is a “question of life or death, for our security today and for our survival tomorrow”, insisted before COP27 the head of the UN, Antonio Guterres.
The conference “must lay the foundations for faster and braver climate action, now and in this decade that will decide whether the climate fight is won or lost”, he warned.
Greenhouse gas emissions must fall by 45% by 2030 to have a chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era, the most ambitious objective of the agreement of Paris.
But the current commitments of the signatory states, even if they were finally respected, would lead to a 5 to 10% increase in emissions, putting the world on a trajectory at best of 2.4°C by the end of the century.
Far from respecting the main objective of the Paris agreement of less than 2°C compared to the time when humans began to burn fossil fuels (coal, oil or gas) responsible for global warming on a large scale.
“No credible leads”
With current policies, a catastrophic +2.8°C is looming.
“Pitifully not up to the job,” castigated Antonio Guterres, who laments that the climate has been relegated to the background by the COVID-19 epidemic, the war in Ukraine, the economic, energy and food crises.
In this context, despite the commitments made at COP26, less than thirty countries have raised their targets, and the UN sees “no credible way” to meet the 1.5°C target.
More than 120 heads of state and government are expected on Monday and Tuesday for a summit that is supposed to give impetus to these two weeks of negotiations.
Without the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, nor the American, Joe Biden, who will quickly go to the COP on November 11. Cooperation between the world’s two main emitters of greenhouse gases, whose relations are strained, is nevertheless crucial. MM. Xi and Biden could, however, meet in Bali the following week on the sidelines of the G20.