The WMO report made people sit up and pay attention on the first day of COP27. At the start of the summit, he offered an overview of the state of the global climate. According to the report, the last eight years may have been the warmest on record. The global average temperature was recently estimated to be about 1.15 degrees above the pre-industrial average.
The La Nina weather phenomenon has slightly lowered temperatures, meaning 2022 will be the fifth or sixth warmest year since records began, according to the report. However, it is only a matter of time before a new record year of heat is measured. The La Nina weather phenomenon, which occurs every few years, lowers the average global temperature because the upper layers of water in the tropical eastern Pacific are unusually cold.
El-Gawhary (ORF) on the World Climate Conference
ORF correspondent Karim El-Gawhary explains why the world climate conference is taking place in Egypt and what demands states can agree to.
Sea level is rising twice as fast
Heat waves, droughts and floods have affected millions of people this year and cost billions. By mid-year, up to 19.3 million people were affected by insecure or inadequate access to food, among other things due to extremely long-lasting droughts in East Africa. Floods in Pakistan have killed at least 1,700 people and displaced nearly eight million people from their homes.
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What will the climate conference bring?
Also, the melting of glaciers has gained tremendous speed this year. Average losses of three to four meters of ice thickness were measured in the Alps, significantly more than in the previous record year of 2003. The Greenland ice sheet has melted for the 26th year in a row, and in August 2021, rain instead of snow fell for the first time at the highest point of the ice sheet. In Switzerland, the volume of glaciers has declined by more than a third in the last twenty years.
Furthermore, the rate of sea level rise has doubled since 1993. Since January 2020, sea level has risen by almost 10 millimeters to a new record. This is a huge threat to coastal regions and low-lying states.
1.5 degree target on paper
According to climate experts, global warming must be stopped by 1.5 degrees to avoid crossing dangerous tipping points and avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. The international community has agreed to this objective. However, due to lack of action, it seems unlikely that this can be achieved.
Gregor Aisch/Nature (Raftery et al)
For years, developing countries and small island states have pointed out that they are already feeling the effects of global warming more severely than rich industrialized countries. They therefore call for additional financial assistance from industrialized countries in this area.
In the nearly 30 years of UN climate negotiations, however, no funding mechanism for this has yet been decided. On Sunday, the conference plenary agreed to anchor financial assistance to the poorest countries to address climate-related damage and loss that is already occurring as a separate item on the negotiating agenda for the first time at COP27.
Worry about high repair payments
This shows “a sense of solidarity and compassion for the plight of victims of climate-related disasters,” COP27 President, Egyptian Foreign Minister Samih Schukri, told delegates from more than 190 countries. At the same time, he emphasized that the negotiating point was not about “responsibility or compensation”.
UN climate summit in Egypt has begun
A first success was already announced on the opening day of the UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh (COP27).
Environmental and development organizations refer to the polluter pays principle on the topic discussed under the buzzword “loss and damage”. Fearing an obligation to pay infinitely high damages, industrialized countries, especially the US, have blocked negotiations on financial aid for climate-related damages and losses in recent years. Now, at least, the view has prevailed that the increasingly urgent topic can no longer be ignored.