Egypt: Fight against climate change: deliberations at COP27 begin

Egypt
Fighting climate change: deliberations begin at COP27

Dozens of leaders are expected to attend the second day of COP27 in Egypt. photo

© Gehad Hamdy/dpa

After the formal start and the election of the new President, the world climate conference is really getting going. Chancellor Scholz and many other heads of state and government will speak in Egypt from Monday.

At the COP27 world climate conference, discussions at the highest political level on the next steps in the fight against global warming will begin on Monday. Speeches are expected from Chancellor Olaf Scholz and dozens of other heads of state and government – including from many countries such as Kenya or Niger, which are particularly vulnerable to climate-related changes and extreme weather events. The new British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden are also expected at the conference.

After the opening of the conference, at which Egypt’s Foreign Minister Samih Shukri was elected President of the COP27 on Sunday, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi invited to another ceremony on Monday. The heads of state and government then want to discuss topics such as water and food safety or green hydrogen in parallel talks, so-called round tables, by Tuesday. After the speeches, which will also continue on Tuesday, Al-Sisi invites to an official reception on Monday evening.

Around 45,000 participants are registered at the conference, most of them as delegates from states. In Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea, representatives from almost 200 countries will spend two weeks discussing how the fight against global warming can be intensified. The new COP27 President Schukri warned that all climate protection measures must be taken on a common basis.

Global warming must be stopped at 1.5 degrees

Time is of the essence, according to a World Weather Organization (WMO) report presented on Sunday. Accordingly, the past eight years indicate the warmest of the records. The global average temperature was recently estimated to be around 1.15 degrees above the pre-industrial average. According to the WMO, the concentration of the most important greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) – reached a new high in 2021, and the increase in methane was even greater than ever.

According to climate researchers, global warming must be stopped at 1.5 degrees to avoid crossing dangerous tipping points and averting the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. Although this is still theoretically possible, it can only be achieved through a radical change of direction in climate policy. The international community has agreed on this goal, but is far from doing enough to implement it politically.

In an interim success, the COP participating states put the issue of financing climate-related damage and losses on the official agenda for the first time. This means damage from extreme weather events and slow changes. Developing countries, which are particularly vulnerable to climate damage, have long fought for formal negotiations on the issue. However, it could be years before a decision is made or new money flows in this context.

dpa

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