The EU has dramatically threatened to pull out of tense COP27 climate talks in Egypt amid renewed fears the UN summit could reverse earlier agreements to limit global warming.
“We don’t want 1.5 °C to die here today,” said EU climate chief Frans Timmermans, referring to a goal of the Paris Agreement of 2015, global warming well below 2 °C from pre-industrial times and ideally below 1.5 to maintain °C.
The summit was due to end on Friday but was extended into the weekend as negotiators disagreed on key issues. These include a proposal that rich countries should allocate “loss and damage” funds to poorer nations suffering the effects of climate change, where talks have been deadlocked.
“Everything is on the table, these are high stakes, capitals are called,” said a European diplomat.
How countries would step up their emissions cuts was also at stake on Friday night, fueling fears from some negotiators that the 1.5 degree target could be at risk.
“We’d rather have no decision than a bad decision,” Timmermans told reporters in Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday.
“All ministers . . . like me, are willing to walk away if we don’t have an outcome that lives up to what the world is waiting for, which is that we do something about this climate crisis,” he said.
Sun Zhen, China’s Deputy Director-General for Climate Change, attends the COP talks. China is among countries opposing EU proposals © AP
China and Saudi Arabia were among countries opposing increased measures to cut emissions as well as the EU’s proposal to fund “loss and damage” for the most vulnerable nations, according to people familiar with the discussions.
While climate COPs are always recalcitrant and rarely end on time, it is unusual for a large group of western countries like the EU to threaten a strike at the last minute.
“Nobody should underestimate the EU’s exit threat,” said Romina Pourmokhtari, Sweden’s climate and environment minister. “There is nobody here who is willing to go back to our countries and explain to them why we took a step back.”
The bloc has stressed the importance of building on last year’s Glasgow Climate Pact, which included a commitment to reduce use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.
COP27 President Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister, said Saturday that the draft text of the final deal will keep the 1.5 degree target alive while taking a “holistic approach to addressing the challenges of climate change”.
Shoukry said there was “equal dissatisfaction in all areas,” but insisted the “vast majority” of parties would find a basis for an agreement.
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“There’s never a perfect solution, but I’ve endeavored to lay the foundation from which we can move forward,” Shoukry said. “Reaching a point of convergence takes some effort.”
There were also concerns about how the Egyptian presidency is handling the summit. “I’ve never experienced anything like it: opaque, unpredictable and chaotic,” said one delegate.
The countries’ negotiating teams were only given a short time to review the updated texts for several important outstanding issues in the early hours of the morning; this is “not a common practice,” said an EU official.
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