Little to show at the end of COP27

The 27th Conference of Parties (CoP-27) of the UNFCCC just escaped being called a failure by agreeing to set up a loss and damage fund, which is a climate compensation fund, during extended hours of negotiation. The fortnight-long conference at Sharm El-Shaikh in Egypt had been considered a ‘CoP of Implementation’ but it has little else to show at the end. There was limited progress on action to be taken to keep temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. There was hardly any progress on how the world could put an end to the use of all forms of fossil fuels, not just coal. Countries had agreed to phase down the use of coal at the last CoP at Glasgow. At Sharm El-Sheikh, there was no agreement on a proposal made by India and other developing countries for adoption of a wider and more aggressive fossil-fuel reduction strategy. This was partly because of the influence of the fossil fuel lobby and partly because of the energy exigencies caused by the Ukraine war. Whatever the reason, a major factor in climate change remains unaddressed.

The loss and damage fund is an important breakthrough but there is only a preliminary agreement on it. The acceptance of the principle of “loss and damage” comes after three decades of campaigning by small island-states and least developed countries. The demand was for giving compensation to these most vulnerable countries for climate-linked disasters beyond mitigation and adaptation. Such compensation can be claimed for loss of property and livelihood and other types of damage. But it is not yet clear how it will be set up and who will pay and how much. The loss and damage which has already occurred is estimated to be of the order of about Rs 50,000 crore, but no major commitments have yet been made for the fund. The US and other rich countries have set, for their participation in the fund, the condition that China, India and the fossil fuel exporters in the Gulf should contribute to it.

While the state of the loss and damage fund is nebulous, there was no progress on the developed countries’ old commitment to provide $100 billion climate finance annually to developing countries by 2020. Many of the contentious issues have been kicked down the road, amidst indications that there will be more pressure on countries like India, which are among the worst victims of climate change, though their responsibility for it is minimal. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ comment that the planet continues to be “in the emergency room” even after CoP-27 well expresses the world’s disappointment with its outcome.