By Jennifer Wilson Pines
No, the annual UN conference on climate change known as COP27 was not about a police car. The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC was the 27th United Nations Climate Change conference, held from Nov. 6 to Nov. 20 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international treaty which acknowledges the existence of climate change and provides the framework for climate change negotiations. The convention was adopted in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, with 196 countries ratifying it into force in 1994. The Conference of the Parties is the decision-making body of the UNFCCC and is made up of representatives from all ratifying countries.
The COP has met each year since 1995 to review the implementation of the convention. Each COP builds on the decisions and resolutions of previous COPs.
In 2022, the G7 nations (United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Japan and the European Union) came with an agenda of codifying the 1.5 Centigrade (roughly 3 degrees Fahrenheit) limit to global temperature increase that had not been successful at COP26. Limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is considered crucial as scientists predict that beyond that threshold, the impacts of climate breakdown will quickly become catastrophic and perhaps irreversible.
The nations of the Global South, the G77, representing the developing nations, had other ideas. These nations are already experiencing catastrophic impact, as the destructive flooding in Pakistan has evidenced, impacting 33 million people. The Maldives are predicted to be uninhabitable by 2100 with continued sea level rise.
The anger and resentment were further fueled by unequal distribution of Covid-19 vaccinations, concentrated in the industrial nations of the north, and by the failure of those same nations to provide for an agreed-on fund for climate change intervention. Added struggles with energy costs, food shortages and mountains of debt brought the attendees tempers to a boiling point.
In this tense atmosphere, negotiations for immediate action and funding met with resistance from the G7, which failed to understand the depth of feeling. At sessions, nation after nation pointed at the continuing disaster in Pakistan and said, “This is also our future.”
The deal that was finally agreed to on loss and damage may provide a basis for the rich countries to better understand the concerns of the poor. All parties will have to work together on setting up the fund and filling it with the monies needed for the disasters already occurring.
But the deal didn’t include China, now one of the biggest emitters next to the United States. Perversely the G77 chose to side with China, which was not classed as a major emitter in 1995 and let them off the hook for emissions. So while COP27 was regarded as a major triumph and breakthrough by the G77, the G7 developed nations are concerned that without China reducing emissions, the 1.5C threshold line will not be achieved.
While this might seem removed from us, Long Island, with its exposed South Shore, is as vulnerable to climate change-driven sea level rise as the Maldives and increased storm events as Pakistan. The experience of Superstorm Sandy, now 10 years in the past, should be a lesson in the immediate need to build resilience and reduce carbon footprints to prevent future disasters.
