Established during the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the Conference of the Parties (COP), has met every year since 1995, bringing together representatives of the States that have signed the UNFCCC as well as civil actors with the aim of taking stock of the application of the commitments made in favor of the climate and by negotiating new commitments.
After the COP22 organized in Morocco in Marrakech, Egypt is hosting this year the second African COP (COP27) in Sharm El-Skheikh, which started this Sunday, November 6 and continues until November 18, with the aim of look again at the issue of climate change and the dangers that this phenomenon represents on our planet.
» JI deeply believe that COP 27 is an opportunity to show unity in the face of an existential threat that we can only overcome through concerted action and effective implementation.e”, said the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, the occasion of the organization of this important event which takes place in a very special health, geopolitical and economic context. So what are Egypt’s objectives and visions through this COP.
For this COP27, which marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the UNFCCC, Egypt set out its vision and objectives for a successful and consensual negotiated outcome at COP27.
This includes making as much progress as possible on all the points under negotiation, in a balanced and fair manner, and on the basis of the rules and principles that govern collective action to combat climate change and its impacts.
This means delivering a comprehensive and ambitious mitigation work programme, achieving and capturing meaningful progress towards the global adaptation goal, addressing the loss and damage gap, including finding a balanced solution to the financing challenge, and effectively addressing the challenge of climate finance in a way that has created confidence in the process and allayed fears, thus calling on developing countries to contribute to the global effort without commensurate support, reads the vision of the presidency.
It is also about basing the work of this COP on the most reliable and credible scientific data available which has consistently established the need for urgent action to fill the existing gaps, in particular in terms of mitigation, adaptation and climate finance.
Egypt also intends to ensure that no country or group is left behind by building mutual trust and understanding and highlighting the global nature of the climate challenge and therefore the need for collective, complementary and collaborative action, emphasizing the need to move from negotiations to implementation through specific, measurable and impactful initiatives to be delivered and implemented on the ground.
Thus, and alongside the negotiating tracks, the Egyptian Presidency of COP27 has designated a number of key thematic days which will include a number of round tables and side events on its agenda.
While some 35,000 participants are expected for COP27, the Presidency explains that the thematic days are part of the host country’s efforts to allow broad interaction with various stakeholders where the voices of young people, women, civil society and indigenous peoples will be at the center of these discussions and a catalyst for its influence.
Key areas of focus will include the promise of innovation and clean technologies as well as the centrality of water and agriculture to the climate crisis underlines the COP Presidency, noting that the role of science will be also highlighted, in addition to biodiversity loss, energy transition, decarbonization efforts and finance.
If during COP26, the countries signatories to the convention had committed to reviewing their greenhouse gas reduction ambitions each year, only 24 countries among them were able to achieve this, leaving the planet on a trajectory of a warming of 2.5°C to 2.6°C by 2030.
A figure that COP 27 is supposed to correct, on the horizon of the organization of COP28 in 2023, one of whose missions will be to make the first global assessment of the Paris Climate Agreement where the signatory countries pledged billions of dollars to help poor countries cope with climate change.