The talks are scheduled to end on Friday, although they are likely to continue at least until Saturday, with new measures and commitments hoped for on issues ranging from cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to financial aid for the poorest countries. In addition to the official negotiations, the Egyptian hosts have organized a series of “thematic days”, during which discussions will take place on issues that are central to the climate crisis but fall outside the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the treaty of 1992 held the 27th conference. Water is of particular concern to the hosts, as the Nile is still the backbone of the Egyptian economy, agriculture and culture. Some wonder how the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where 45,000 delegates have gathered for the talks, will manage to find water in the future. Gender also takes center stage on Monday, with discussions about how women are particularly at a disadvantage when it comes to the climate crisis. Research has shown that women and girls face increased violence in areas affected by climate-related disasters and are at a disadvantage when it comes to critical issues such as land rights and receiving investment and aid. The inclusion of women and girls is also vital to solving the problem. Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and two-time UN climate envoy, who arrived at Cop27 on Saturday and who was instrumental in ensuring that previous police included a “gender plan” on climate, called the climate crisis “a man-made problem with a feminist solution”. On Tuesday, the focus will turn to civil society. Egypt, an authoritarian state, has a dismal human rights record and prisons are full of dissidents. Civil society activities and protests have been severely curtailed by this police force, and the Guardian has been told of instances of intimidation. Civil society groups will use this day to try to support the need for free expression as a means of lobbying governments on the climate emergency. Energy also takes center stage on Tuesday, with a flurry of announcements about new clean energy deals and partnerships in various countries for a “just transition” away from fossil fuels. That means helping people with jobs in fossil fuel industries move into jobs in clean energy. Wednesday will be biodiversity day. Protecting nature and how it can be combined with tackling the climate crisis – such as conserving and regrowing forests and restoring wetlands and peatlands as carbon sinks or regenerating mangrove swamps as storm barriers and higher sea levels – are known as nature-based solutions in climate terminology. Nature-based solutions received a lot of attention at Cop26, but this was more muted in Sharm el-Sheikh. The next major UN biodiversity meeting, Cop15, will be held in Canada in a few weeks, so expect to hear more about expectations for the conference this Wednesday. The last thematic day will be the solutions day on Thursday, when the private sector will be able to present new technologies and ideas. There are many green entrepreneurs at Cop27 who want to present their ideas. There are also more than 600 representatives known to be from the fossil fuel industry, who are persistently courting governments to insist that they offer the solution. Controversy over whether carbon capture and storage is a viable technology and whether hydrogen from fossil fuels is a “Trojan horse” for the oil and gas industry to greenwash its products is likely. Delegates listen to Sameh Shoukry, chair of the Cop27 climate summit, during an opening session at the summit. Photo: Peter de Jong/AP Meanwhile, the negotiations themselves will continue, mostly in closed-door meetings where countries can work out their differences. Topics include reducing greenhouse gas emissions to meet the 1.5C target and how to help countries adapt to the effects of extreme weather, for example by restoring mangrove swamps and coral reefs, building sea walls , the regrowth of forests or the installation of early warning systems. The finances for these efforts, from the rich world to the poor, will also come under scrutiny. Carlos Fuller, the ambassador for Belize, said: “I am very encouraged by the way all parties are engaging constructively [on reducing emissions]. We’re out of time [in the first week] but I’m sure this week there will be an ambitious result.” But he added:[I am] frustrated by commitment to funding, procurement and response [to the climate crisis].” The most contentious issue of all is loss and damage. The term refers to the effects of extreme weather events so intense that countries cannot adapt to them – recent examples include the devastating floods in Pakistan in August and September, which left 20 million people in need of humanitarian aid, and the ongoing drought in Africa, worst in the last 40 years, which threatens almost 150 million people with extreme hunger. Negotiations on loss and damage revolve around how to provide financial aid to developing countries hit by such extreme weather events that, as well as threatening lives, can destroy their infrastructure and tear apart their social fabric. Talks of loss and damage as “compensation” to developing countries from the rich world, or “responsibility” on the part of the countries responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions, are specifically excluded from the negotiations and have been excluded from the Paris agreement. in 2015. The most important stories on the planet. Get all the week’s environmental news – the good, the bad and the must-haves Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Ineza Umuhoza Grace, Rwanda’s loss and damage negotiator, said: “Loss and damage financing is now on the agenda, but much needs to be done to ensure that the financial commitment is new, additional and accessible vulnerable communities, and above all that it will not increase the debt of developing countries. We need a reformed structure and developing countries are the ones who have the solution.” Omar Alcock, chief negotiator for Jamaica, said more financial aid is needed for poor countries. “Work programs and workshops are not good enough. To ignore the obvious is to deny the reality of climate change. Loss and damage financing is not a cure, but a necessity,” he said. “Discussions on casualties and damage have been weak, without much progress [so far].” Wording on all these issues is likely to be included on the cover of Cop, a document summarizing where countries have come on key issues. what decisions they make, what actions need to be taken. and where the main disagreements lie. Negotiators are considering possible texts on all of these issues, but are unlikely to produce a formal draft text until around Wednesday, according to sources inside the talks. So far, the negotiations have been fairly calm, according to insiders, but that is partly because at this stage most options within the decisions and texts have been left open. In the text, these possible options are in brackets, indicating that the wording has not yet been agreed upon. As the week progresses, countries will be forced to choose which of the many options on each topic to promote and which to drop – aiming to remove as many of the brackets as possible and leave only what all countries can agree on. Once an initial draft text is agreed and issued by the Egyptian presidency, it will go through several other drafts while each remaining set of brackets is scrutinized so that the phrase inside can be freed from the brackets, modified or removed. Through this painstaking process, nearly 200 countries represented by thousands of negotiators will eventually come up with a cover sheet that will set out where the world is going on the climate crisis, with commitments and resolutions for rich and poor countries and a work program that should help countries to make progress in reducing emissions, to cooperate on joint projects, and for those with the means to help those without. At least that’s the plan. Things can, and do, go wrong right up to the last minute. The official draft cover for Cop26, which when adopted became the Glasgow climate accord, was released for the first time on the second Wednesday of that fortnight of talks. The seven-page document went through four major drafts over the next three days, until early Saturday morning. Until the last minute, it was still subject to change – just as Cop26 chairman Alok Sharma thought he had a full deal on Saturday afternoon, China and India stepped in to demand the coal “phase-out” referred to in the text to be weakened to “gradual reduction”. These last minute hassles brought Sharma to the verge of tears. Sameh Shoukry, president of Cop27 Egypt, will try to avoid the same fate.
