The pandemic is entering its fourth year, the war is raging in Europe and the consequences of climate change can be seen in all regions of the world: In this environment, the 27th UN climate summit (COP27) starts on Sunday in the seaside resort Egypt of Sharm-El-Sheikh.
Under the slogan “Together for a fair and ambitious implementation NOW”, representatives of the nearly 200 contracting States of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will meet over the next two weeks to once again discuss the implementation and design of the 2015 Negotiating the Paris Climate Agreement.
It is the first summit following the publication of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. All three working groups once again underline the urgency with which the world’s decision-makers must address all facets of climate protection.
The collective commitments made so far are not enough to contain the effects of man-made climate change as planned. Instead, global greenhouse gas emissions are higher than ever. The World Climate Organization has reported record levels of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide in Earth’s atmosphere in 2021.
Conference as “Pacemaker”
“Measures against global warming are not enough and this year is particularly irritating, especially since last year, at the Glasgow summit, all countries accepted that something needed to be done,” says Niklas Höhne, head of the New Climate Institute in Cologne. and professor for climate protection at the Dutch University of Wageningen.
Of course, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine launched numerous plans, “but now we’re not just a little, we’re a long way from our goal of reducing the global average temperature rise to well below two degrees, if possible to 1.5 degrees. compared to the pre-industrial age limit,” says Höhne. To achieve it, countries would have to halve their emissions. Hot summer, extremely hot October, floods: “These effects are felt by everyone and they won’t go away,” she warns.
Political scientist Alina Brad emphasized in a broadcast on Thursday that the Paris climate goals cannot be achieved without quick, far-reaching measures, such as halting the production and burning of fossil fuels. The readjustment of national climate targets is the order of the day and is being implemented very slowly.
What can a climate summit achieve?
Last week, the UN Emissions Gap Report showed that with the states’ current climate plans, neither the 1.5 degree nor the 2 degree limit can be met. Instead of the necessary reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by ideally 45 or at least 30% by 2030, an increase of more than 10% is expected. In Egypt, an international inventory is to be prepared in 2023 to prepare future climate protection plans based on this.
“While many countries are apparently chasing ambitious climate targets and fighting for climate neutrality – Austria by 2040, for example – the 1.5 degree threshold at the global level, all national climate targets taken together, is still clearly exceeded.” criticizes Brad.
But how good is a climate conference that is not a world government, but a system of sovereign states that decide for themselves what they want to contribute, to get all of this off paper in a binding way? “It’s important to pay attention to the benchmark you use,” says Wolfgang Obergassel of the Energy and Climate Policy department at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. The current transformation of the world economy can only be compared with industrialization, which lasted 50 years. “The essential function of this conference is to set the pace. The mere fact that countries submit reports every year creates pressure and keeps the issue on the agenda.”
However, countries would have to become more ambitious. “What we hope will be new is a program of work to reduce global emissions, which will determine what instruments can be used to close the global emissions gap,” says Obergassel. Because no matter how much Europe tries to protect the climate, emissions-intensive products from other countries are still sold everywhere, and emissions from other parts of the world will eventually reach the entire globe.
financial compensation
The energy crisis further aggravates the situation. More and more projects to develop new oil and gas fields would be started. World subsidies for fossil fuels have doubled, although projects planned before the energy crisis significantly exceeded the remaining global CO2 emissions budget. “If we don’t stop building infrastructure for fossil fuels, we won’t make it,” warns Höhne.
Financial compensation for countries that contribute the least to CO2 emissions but often suffer the most from the effects must also be an issue. The Alliance for Climate Justice calls for a new funding package from the international community. “Policy must quickly close key gaps in climate justice and climate finance,” he said. The platform, made up of 26 Austrian environmental, development and social organizations, invites industrialized nations to contribute the $100 billion pledged annually to climate finance in order to fulfill their commitments.