Cop27: A warming world in crisis

What’s Cop27?

“Cop” refers to the annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These meetings address progress on global efforts to battle climate change, and are attended by heads of state, ministers, climate activists, civil society representatives and business leaders. Cop27, which will be the 27th such conference, will be held from Nov 6 to 18 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Why it matters

The conference is arguably the highest-level gathering focused on combatting climate change, and throws a spotlight on governments’ commitments on this front.

Such commitments are coming under ever-greater scrutiny as the world’s climate crisis grows more dire. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body for assessing the science related to climate change, said earlier this year that the world is headed towards unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades and stressed the necessity of urgent action.

Given the attention surrounding the conference, many private-sector organisations use the opportunity to announce new developments at the event.

What Cop27 hopes to achieve

Egypt has declared its aim to make this year’s conference an “implementation Cop” by urging action across prior agreements through all areas of climate change needs and dealing with the issue of how the world will pay for the estimated US$125 trillion bill to tackle climate change by 2050.

This, while keeping the focus on enabling a just and managed transition to a sustainable economic model, and “ensuring that no country or group is left behind” – a pronouncement that will be tested as the world observes how and if richer nations will come to the aid of their poorer counterparts.

Much of the focus will also be on countries’ efforts to deliver on the landmark Paris Agreement that came out of Cop21 in 2015. Then, 196 parties agreed to limit global warming to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels, by cutting their greenhouse gas emissions until they reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding agreement that works on a five-year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action carried out by signatories. These plans are known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

What to expect from Asia

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) recently published a report that analysed the NDCs of most major Asian countries and found that many still lack details in terms of how they intend to reach their emission-reduction targets.

EIU is expecting a softening in ambition from Asia as the region deals with energy costs and security in the fallout of the war in Ukraine:

• China, despite being the global leader in renewable energy investments, will likely maintain a soft approach towards the fossil fuels needed to fuel its massive economy in the short to medium term; the mainland has in recent months encouraged higher domestic coal production to ensure energy security and stable economic growth;
• India and Indonesia will remain major coal consumers in the next decade, while pushing for greater funding from the developed world for supporting their clean-energy transition;
• Japan and South Korea will remain committed to transitioning to a low-carbon economy, but recent energy market turbulence has renewed their governments’ focus on energy security, which is likely to mean more support for nuclear energy in both countries.

EIU said it foresees that developing Asian countries such as India and Indonesia will find it difficult to secure meaningful commitments at Cop27 from the developed world to finance their energy transition, given the volatile economic and geopolitical environment.

“The lack of sufficient mitigation finance, a monetary tightening cycle in major Western economies and high material costs for renewable projects will make energy transition costlier. This will result in countries showing greater resistance to wean themselves off dirty fuels such as coal, and could weaken the climate policy stance taken by developing Asia at the conference,” it added.

It also expects that recent extreme weather events in Europe and the US will shift domestic public sentiment in these countries towards channelling climate adaptation funds towards domestic needs before committing to assist other countries, which will be detrimental to negotiations on providing financial support for developing Asian countries.