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With an eye on the renewal and extension of the unprecedented commitments reached in the Paris Agreement seven years ago, COP27 began this Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The summit, which will last until November 18, represents a turning point to curb climate change after COP26 certified that the world is facing a critical decade.
Implementation, financing, mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage and cooperation are the central axis of COP27.
The deserted city of Sharm el Sheikh, on the shores of the Red Sea, hosts the climate summit under the slogan “Together for implementation”. A message that urges the need to move from promises and announcements to concrete actions, at a time when climate change is becoming more evident.
The meeting represents a crucial point in the mitigation of global warming. Opening the summit, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the planet is irreversibly headed for climate disaster.
“As COP27 gets under way, our planet is sending a distress signal (…) The state of the global climate is a chronicle of climate chaos,” Guterres warned Sunday at the start of the international climate conference.
The diplomat has warned before that chaos will be inevitable unless countries find a way to get the world back on track in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and help poor nations deal with the effects of global warming.
The starting point for the discussions is the historic Paris Agreement, signed in 2015 within the framework of COP21, in which world leaders agreed on efforts to keep the increase in the average temperature of the planet below 2ºC, with with respect to pre-industrial levels, and seek that this increase has a limit of 1.5 ºC.
In addition, a relevant part of the agenda is the legacy of COP26, which took place in Glasgow in 2021 and in which more than one hundred countries committed to reducing methane emissions by 30%.
However, advances in financing and adaptation have not been sufficient.
After major heat waves, drought and forest fires that the world witnessed this 2022 in Europe, as well as hurricanes and storms more powerful compared to their average magnitudes in America and Asia, among other climatic phenomena, promoting actions is the priority of the summit agenda this year.
COP27 will formally discuss economic compensation to vulnerable countries
The delegates of the countries participating in the summit organized by the United Nations defined this Sunday, November 6, that there will be a discussion among world leaders on whether or not they should compensate the poorest and most vulnerable nations in the face of climate change.
An issue for some considered controversial and for others an outstanding debt, since the most industrialized nations are the ones that accelerate the warming of the planet the most, whose consequences have a global impact. The high environmental and economic costs are also borne by poor countries, in many cases the least polluting.
Last year, during the UN climate summit COP26, former US President Barack Obama lashed out at China and Russia, two of the main polluters along with the US, which he accused of ignoring calls to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This 2022, the debate will focus on “financing agreements that respond to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including an approach to address loss and damage,” said COP27.
This is how the COP27 agenda is distributed
In the twelve-day meeting, the central approaches will be addressed by themes and specific days. According to the calendar of the United Nations conference, this November 6 is marked by events of the COP27 presidency.
Between November 7 and 8, the World Leaders Summit will be held, in which the Heads of State and Government will participate.
November 9 will focus on finance, 10 on science, youth and future generations, 11 on decarbonization, 12 on adaptation, agriculture and food systems, 14 on gender and water, 15 on energy, 16 in biodiversity and 17 in solutions.
In addition, from November 15 to 18, they will also be marked by high-level meetings in which mainly ministers will participate.
The UN climate summit this year takes place at a time when the planet is also facing major challenges such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, inflation, the energy crisis and food shortages. Enormous challenges that leaders will have to mediate, especially to achieve an energy transition without causing major disaster to the global economy.
With Reuters, AP and EFE
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