After more than two weeks of negotiations, COP27 resulted in a “historic” agreement on compensation for climate damage. But held “hostage” by the fossil fuel industries, progress remains “timid” and Canada can be “pointed to”, according to environmental experts.
The creation of a fund to compensate for the climate damage already suffered by the poorest countries is a “big step for climate justice and the credibility of international negotiations”, said Alexandre Gajevic Sayegh, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the ‘Laval University.
The financing of this fund, signed in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, remains under negotiation. But the approval of its creation by the rich countries, which for years had been reluctant to the idea of specific funding, is a “major step forward”.
This new measure is in addition to the 2009 commitment, not yet achieved, to increase to 100 billion dollars per year funding for developing countries for adaptation to climate change and the reduction of emissions.
The environmental policy specialist also highlights the union of new countries in the movement to reduce emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
another wasted year
The “main shortcoming is the absence of clear measures for the reduction of oil and gas production in the world”, indicates Mr. Gajevic Sayegh, who judges that no progress has been made on this subject since the COP. Glasgow, in 2021. “We have lost another year in this fight against the climate crisis. »
Final declaration calls for ‘rapid’ emissions cuts and maintains Paris Agreement target of keeping warming to 1.5°C, but current pledges don’t put on ‘right trajectory’, regrets the teacher.
Assuming that they are fully met, they would at best put the world on the trajectory of 2.4°C at the end of the century and, at the current rate of emissions, on that of a catastrophic 2.8°C.
“We need to drastically reduce emissions now, and that’s a question this COP hasn’t answered,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Canada singled out
A failure that the professor attributes in part to the “lack of leadership” of Canada. “The world has been held hostage by major oil and gas producers to not directly address the cause” of climate change.
According to him, Canada, which refused to include language requested by India aimed at phasing out all fossil fuels, “played the role of the enemy until the last minute”. Ottawa, which had supported coal language last year, was unwilling to accept the addition of oil and gas.
“Once again, Canada has listened more to the oil and gas lobbies than to the voices of the people,” said Greenpeace Canada Climate-Energy Campaigner Patrick Bonin in a statement.
“We live in an oil state,” says Mr. Gajevic Sayegh. Our policies have always been aligned with the needs of the fossil industries. […] You have to tell them that the party is finished. »
Having a pavilion at the COP for the first time, Canada invited representatives of the fossil fuel industry to three events. A decision that puts “rather fuel on the fire”, wrote in a press release Andréanne Brazeau, political analyst at Équiterre.
Canada arrives at 58e rank out of 60 Climate Change Performance Index, which annually assesses the value of the climate commitments and policies of 59 countries and the European Union.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not present at COP27.
Omnipresent lobbies
Egypt, which chaired COP27 from November 6-20, has been criticized for its arbitration of the negotiations. The country is a great diplomatic ally of the Gulf oil and gas states and Russia.
“The influence of the fossil fuel industry was everywhere,” charged Laurence Tubiana, architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement. NGOs revealed that COP27 welcomed 25% more oil and gas lobbyists than COP26 in Glasgow.
“We are fair, impartial and transparent,” insisted Foreign Minister Sameh Choukri. “If there were mistakes, there was no bad intention behind them, we did everything in the interests of the negotiations,” he added.
Negotiations on “decarbonising our economies will be all the more important this year, knowing that the next COP will take place [aux Émirats arabes unis]at an oil giant,” says Gajevic Sayegh.
There have been advances on “methane, deforestation and climate justice. Now we will have to talk about “the elephant in the room”. We will not be an environmental leader if we do not manage to put our panties in front of the oil and gas industry”.
A fading concept?
A few days before the start of COP27, environmental activist Greta Thunberg had turned her back on the UN climate conferences, believing that they had become greenwashing machines (greenwashing). The COPs “are not really about changing the system”, but about encouraging incremental progress that has become futile in the face of the climate emergency, she said.
With the obstacles that emerge year after year to find consensus in the face of climate catastrophe, are the COPs still relevant? Yes, answers Alexandre Gajevic Sayegh, who believes that they “still have their raison d’être”.
COP27 notably gave rise to “mini-agreements between polluting countries and developed countries”. South Africa, Indonesia or Vietnam, which are heavily dependent on coal in their energy mix, will now be able to count economically on “the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom” to “decarbonize [leur] economy “.
With The Canadian Press and Agence France-Presse