CoP27

• The Conference of Parties (COP) is the apex decision-making body of the United Nations Climate Change Framework Convention (UNFCCC).
• The UNFCCC was formed in 1994 to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions & to protect the earth from the threat of climate change.
• A key task for the COP is to review the national communications & emission inventories submitted by parties. Based on this information, the COP assesses the effects of the measures taken by Parties & the progress made in achieving the ultimate objective of the Convention.
• The COP meets every year unless the Parties decide otherwise. The first COP meeting was held in Berlin, Germany in March 1995. The COP meets in Bonn, the seat of the secretariat unless a Party offers to host the session.
• As the COP Presidency rotates among the five recognized UN regions-Africa, Asia, Latin America, Caribbean, Central & Eastern Europe, Western Europe & others. There is a tendency for the venue of the COP to also shift among these groups.

• As per un.org, the 27th conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), which took place in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh, concluded with a historic decision to establish & operationalize a loss & damage fund.
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that more needs to be done to drastically reduce emissions now. The world still needs a giant leap in climate ambition. The red line that must not be crossed is the line that takes earth over the 1.5⁰ temperature limit.
• From 6 to 20 November, COP27 held high-level & side events, key negotiations, and press conferences, hosting more than 100 heads of State & Governments, over 35,000 participants & numerous pavilions showcasing climate action around the world & across different sectors.

• India & other countries engaged constructively & actively on the subject of loss & damage, which refers to the destruction caused by climate change-induced disasters. For instance, the money needed for relocating people displaced by floods was a long-pending demand of poor & developing countries, including India.
• The new loss & damage fund is a testament to the perseverance & tenacity of climate-vulnerable countries & civil society groups.

• The decision by nations around the world to establish a fund to help poor countries hit hard by a warming planet was one of the most significant since UN climate talks began 30 years ago.
• It was an unequivocal confirmation that poor countries, with limited resources, are being most impacted by extreme weather events like floods, heat waves, and storms & at least at some level, industrialized nations that have done the most to contribute to climate change have a responsibility to help.

• In the early 1990s, the alliance of small island states, a group of low-lying coastal & small island countries, began calling for the establishment of loss & damage funds as the United Nations was creating a framework to deal with climate change on an international level. Since then, the idea was always a part of annual UN climate summits.
• It was often talked about on the margins of negotiations, something developing nations & activists would push for while many rich nations used their weight to squash the idea. For the first time, at this year's COP27, it was included in the agenda & became the centrepiece of discussions.

• The fund will initially draw on contributions from developed countries & other private & public sources, like international financial institutions, with an option for other major economies to join down the line.
• The final text points to identifying & expanding sources of funding, something the US & others had pushed for during negotiations, suggesting that nations that are both high-polluting & considered developing under the criteria, should pay into the fund.
• During the talks, China said money for the new fund should come from developed countries, not them. But there's precedence for China to voluntarily pay into climate funds if the US does too. When the Obama administration pledged $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund in 2014, China also paid $3.1 billion for the fund.
• More details of who pays will be decided by a committee that plans to get the fund going within a year.
• The deal says the fund will assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, though there will be room for middle-income countries that are severely affected by climate disasters to get paid. Pakistan which was devastated by flooding that put a third of the country underwater or Cuba, recently battered by Hurricane Ian, could be eligible.
• The loss & damage fund will fit in with other institutions, and agencies that are out there doing humanitarian work, helping people rebuild, dealing with migration & refugee crises, dealing with food security, and water security will need to be worked out, said David Waskow, the World Resource Institute international climate director. Those details will also be hammered out by the committee in the coming year.

• Beyond financial help, setting up the fund is seen as a huge step forward, but how it's ultimately viewed will depend in part on how fast it can be set up. In the closing session, Antigua's Lia Nicholson said the transitional committee should be set up immediately & given clear mandates.
• This loss & damage fund must become the lifeboat that we need it to be. There is a credibility gap because of past broken promises.
• In 2009, rich nations agreed to provide $100 billion a year to help developing countries transition to green energy systems & adapt to climate change. However, to date, that initiative has never been fully funded.

• One of the main reasons that rich nations long opposed such a loss & damage fund was the fear that it would open them up to long-term liability.
• Despite the passage, that concern is very much still at play, as evidenced by how negotiators made sure the language of the fund didn't say liability & that contributions were voluntary.
• Despite those caveats, the establishment of such a fund could have repercussions, both legal & symbolic, in climate circles & beyond. For example, several Pacific Island nations have been pushing for the International Court of Justice to consider climate change.
• They argue that international laws must be strengthened to protect their rights in the case that their lands are engulfed by rising seas. The establishment of a loss & damage fund could bolster those arguments.

• The Sharm el-Sheikh climate meeting will probably always be remembered for its decision to set up a loss & damage fund. This decision has earned it a place among the major milestones in the global response to climate change.
• But on most other parameters, the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting, the 27th session of the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or COP27, proved to be an underachiever.
• The meeting was built up as the implementation COP or the meeting that would accelerate the actions being taken on climate change. The final agreement had little to justify that expectation.

• Going into the conference, it was expected that COP27 would respond to the growing urgency for greater emission cuts. Most scientific estimates now suggest that the 1.5⁰ Celsius target for temperature rise is likely to be breached within a decade.
• With current efforts to reduce emissions, the world is headed to a temperature rise of about 3⁰ Celsius from pre-industrial times by the end of this century.
• There were different ways in which COP27 was expected to respond to this. One of the ideas, floated by the European Union, was to ask every country to strengthen their respective climate actions every year from now to 2030, a radical suggestion that was unlikely to have met with approval from most countries. As of now, the countries have to upgrade their climate actions every five years. The latest upgrade was just this year.
• Another idea was to call for a phase-down of all fossil fuel use. This was unlikely to have done much to reduce emissions in the short term but would still have been meaningful towards the larger objective of curbing the use of the main cause of global warming.
• The idea, proposed by India, was initially expected to be opposed by developed countries, especially since their dependence on oil & gas has increased in the last year. However, after initial hesitation, both the EU as well as the United States backed the proposal. The opposition came from within the ranks of the developing countries, especially from the oil-producing Gulf nations. The matter was not pushed.
• The least that was hoped for on this front was an inclusion of a stronger mention of the goal of pursuing the 1.5⁰ Celsius target. It would have been little more than a statement of intent. But even that was not agreeable to all.
• The only decision in this regard was to continue the discussions on a work programme set up last year to urgently scale up mitigation action. COP27 decided that two global dialogues would be held each year as part of this work programme.

• Most of the conversation on climate actions is focused on mitigation efforts. Developing countries, which are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, have often argued that adaptation is not given sufficient attention.
• Adaptation involves efforts that help a country negate or deal with the impacts of climate change.
• At the Glasgow climate meeting, an effort was initiated to define global goals on adaptation, just as the 2⁰ or 1.5⁰ Celsius targets serve as the global goal for mitigation.
• Defining global adaptation is much more complex, considering that the benefits of adaptation occur locally, not at a global level. If at att, there would be multiple global goals on adaptation. It was hoped that COP27 would make some progress in identifying the adaptation goals.
• However, nothing much was delivered on this track, except for expressing support for the Glasgow-Sharm el-Sheikh work programme that is scheduled to finish its work next year.
• Another expectation was to see some money flowing in for adaptation purposes. Developing countries have been demanding that at least half of climate finance should be directed towards adaptation projects. Some countries, including the United States, did promise some money, but it wasn't more than a trickle.
• An important initiative on adaptation came from the UN Secretary-General, who unveiled plans of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) to set up early warning systems in areas that do not have them. About one-third of the world, including about 60% of Africa, is not equipped with early warning & climate information systems.
• The WMO said this needs to be corrected in the next five years. The COP27 agreement said it fully supported the initiative & invited development organisations & international financial institutions to help the effort.

• The biggest disappointment, not surprisingly, came in matters related to money. The developed countries have not yet delivered on their promise to mobilise USD 100 billion every year, something that should have happened in 2020.
• All that the COP27 agreement, did about this was to express serious concern. Interestingly, the COP27 agreement for the first time quantified the financial needs for climate action. It said about USD 4 trillion had to be invested in the renewable energy sector every year till 2030 if the 2050 net zero targets were to be achieved.
• Additionally, at least USD 4-6 trillion was required every year for global transformation to a low-carbon economy. About USD 5.9 trillion was needed by the developing countries in the pre-2030 period, just to implement their climate action plans.
• The developed countries have said they will ensure the USD 100 billion flow from 2023. A parallel discussion is going on to scale up this amount from 2025. Additionally, the COP27 agreement has urged international financial institutions to simplify their procedures & priorities, so that it is easier for developing countries to access money for climate actions.