What is Cop27 and why does it matter?

Jehangir Hussain

Jehangir Hussain

For almost three decades, world governments have met nearly every year to forge a global response to the climate emergency. Under the 1992 UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC), every country is treaty-bound to “avoid dangerous climate change” and find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally in an equitable way.

Cop stands for conference of the parties under the UNFCCC, and the annual meetings have swung between fractious and soporific, interspersed with moments of high drama and the occasional triumph (the Paris agreement in 2015) and disaster (Copenhagen in 2009). This year is the 27th iteration, and promises to be a difficult follow-up to the landmark summit last year, Cop26 in Glasgow.

The Cop27 talks began on November 6 and is due to  end November 18, but past experience of Cops shows they are likely to extend November 20.

However, to meet those goals, countries also agreed on non-binding national targets to cut – or in the case of developing countries to curb – the growth of – greenhouse gas emissions in the near term, by 2030 in most cases.

Those targets – known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – were inadequate to hold the world within the Paris temperature targets. If fulfilled, they would result in 3Cor more of warming, which would be disastrous.

Everyone knew at Paris that the NDCs were inadequate, so the French built into the accord a “ratchet mechanism” by which countries would have to return to the table every five years with fresh commitments. Those five years ended on December31, 2020, and at Cop26 in November 2021, countries assembled to set out new targets.

The most important development at Cop26 was that countries agreed to focus on the tougher 1.5C aspirational goal of the Paris agreement, acknowledging that the 2C target would allow massive devastation to take place. Research conducted since the Paris agreement was signed has shown a temperature rise of 2C above pre-industrial levels would cause changes to the climate system that would be, in many cases, catastrophic, and some of them would be irreversible, so switching the focus to a 1.5C goal represents vital progress.

Many countries also updated their NDCs at Cop26, and countries responsible for about three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions set out long-term targets to reach net zero carbon by about mid-century.

However, to stay within 1.5C, the world must not only reach net zero by about 2050 but also halve greenhouse gas emissions, compared with 2010 levels, in this decade. However, the emissions pledges at Cop26 were not adequate to meet that goal.

So at the Glasgow summit, countries also agreed to hasten the ratchet mechanism, decreeing that progress on NDCs should be updated every year, and countries were encouraged to come forward this year, and as often as necessary, with new NDCs until they are adequate.

No one at Glasgow last year could have foreseen what a changed world we would live in today. Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in February was not only brutal but has sent shockwaves around the world. Geopolitics have been upended, alliances and relationships redrawn, and the world has been plunged into crisis.

Energy prices were already rising before Putin’s invasion, as the world recovered from the Covid-19 shock, but the Ukraine war has sent gas prices soaring. Putin has shown his willingness to use European dependence on Russian gas as a weapon of war, turning down the taps, threatening to withdraw supplies, then (almost certainly) sabotaging the Nord Stream pipeline.

The result has been even higher gas prices and a bonanza for fossil fuel companies, which have been raking in record profits.

Faced with record-high gas prices, the EU has taken a series of steps that include an energy efficiency drive, a windfall tax on the profits of fossil fuel companies to try to lower household bills and a massive push for renewable energy.

But some EU countries have also returned – temporarily, they insist – to coal-fired power generation and embarked on a hunt for new fossil fuel supplies, building liquefied natural gas terminals and seeking deals with countries in Africa and elsewhere to explore new gasfields.

The International Energy Agency warned last year that no new fossil fuel development could take place if the world was to stay within 1.5C. If these developments are not swiftly curtailed they could be disastrous for hopes of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown.

And it’s not all. food prices have also soared owing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as both are massive producers of grain, sunflower oil and other staples, and also because fertiliser prices have increased – Russia and Ukraine are big producers of fertiliser, and even fertiliser produced elsewhere is more expensive as it requires a lot of energy to produce.

This has led to the threat of food shortages, particularly to the vulnerable, and to a cost of living crisis engulfing developed and developing countries. The poor in many parts of the world are facing renewed economic hardship.

Finally, to add to the geopolitical woes, relations between the world’s two biggest emitters, the US and China, have plunged to a new low, after the visit of Nancy Pelosi, the third highest-ranking member of the US’s ruling Democratic party, to Taiwan this summer.

Last year, at Cop26, China and the US surprised everyone by signing a new bilateral deal to cooperate on tackling the climate crisis.

This year, although technically climate negotiations are supposed to be in a “bubble” of their own, unaffected by the wider diplomatic context, in reality the countries have ceased to talk on this issue too.

Sameh Shourky, the Egyptian foreign minister who is chairing the Cop27 talks, has offered his services as mediator between the US and China. But his task will be made more difficult by the tense geopolitical situation, the possibility of walkouts in protest at Russia’s actions, and Egypt’s position as an ally of key oil producers such as Saudi Arabia.

Campaigners are concerned that civil society activists will be shut out of the Cop27 conference, or unable to demonstrate effectively. The UN guarantees a right of participation for civil society groups, and in an interview with the Guardian, Shoukry was keen to emphasise that campaigners would be welcome and that 9,000 had registered. But civil society groups are treading carefully, concerned that any work they do with local activists in Egypt could leave those people exposed when the UN Cop27 circus departs.

The host country of Cop26 had its own dramas in the past year, running through three prime ministers, as well as the death of the Queen and the accession of King Charles III.

While Alok Sharma, the UK president of Cop26, has spent the year trying to shore up the “fragile” deal achieved in Glasgow – he hasrepeatedly warned that the 1.5C target is “on life support … its pulse is weak” – his ministerial colleagues have often seemed to be working against him.

jehangirh01@gmail.com