COP27 Dispatch - November 21, 2022

View this newsletter online Subscribe Review EESI Welcome! COP27 came to a close over the weekend.   COP27 is officially over, with negotiations wrapping up early Sunday morning in Egypt. The final outcome included the cover decision—the Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan—and almost 60 additional decisions. As EESI’s Executive Director Daniel Bresette noted in a press release, “The U.N. climate summit ended on a surprisingly—but not entirely—positive note … Most importantly, the wealthy nations of the world, including the United States, agreed to help vulnerable developing countries cover some of the unavoidable costs resulting from climate change—known as loss and damage. But there was not enough progress on climate change mitigation to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F).” Read the full press release. EESI will host a Congressional briefing on Friday, December 2, to examine the outcomes of COP27 in more detail and what it all means for Congress. RSVP for the briefing here. This will be the final issue of COP27 Dispatch. All past newsletter issues can be found on EESI’s website, along with all of our COP27 resources. Until next year!  To keep up with EESI all year, subscribe to our biweekly newsletter, Climate Change Solutions.

The COP27 cover decision, the Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan, covers topics such as the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature goal, fossil fuels, just transitions, and climate finance. (Negotiations)   In what will be remembered as the most significant decision of COP27, countries agreed to create a loss and damage fund. (Negotiations)   U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s COP27 closing statement highlighted key initiatives involving the U.S., including the Global Methane Pledge, the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership, the Green Shipping Challenge, and the First Movers Coalition. (U.S. Updates) Sections   Negotiations   |   U.S. Updates   |   Around the World   |   EESI COP27 Resources   Negotiators clap during a closing plenary speech by COP27 President Sameh Shoukry. Credit: UNFCCC Cover decision: The cover decision, known as the Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan, is a 13-page document covering a variety of issues, including science and urgency, mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, early warning and systematic observation, finance, technology transfer, capacity building, ocean, forest, and enhancing action of non-country stakeholders. Some key items in the Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan include:   1.5 degrees Celsius: It includes essentially the same language from last year’s Glasgow Climate Pact on the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature goal: “Reaffirms the Paris Agreement temperature goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.” Fossil fuels: It repeats the exact same language as the Glasgow Climate Pact on fossil fuels: “Calls upon Parties to accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies, and the adoption of policies, to transition towards low-emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up the deployment of clean power generation and energy efficiency measures, including accelerating efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, while providing targeted support to the poorest and most vulnerable in line with national circumstances and recognizing the need for support towards a just transition.” According to Carbon Brief, 80 countries, including the U.S., wanted to strengthen the language to include a phasedown of all fossil fuels (not just coal), but the Egyptian Presidency rejected this text.   Just transition: It creates a new work programme on just transition to help countries transition away from fossil fuels and scale up clean energy.   Finance: It highlights that “a global transformation to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investment of at least $4-6 trillion per year.” It then calls out that this amount of funding “requires a transformation of the financial system and its structures and processes.” The decision includes a specific recommendation for reform of multilateral development banks. More finance: It emphasizes that developed countries, including the U.S., have still not met their pledge—made over a decade ago—to provide $100 billion in international climate finance per year. Nature-based solutions: In the forest section of the cover decision, nature-based solutions are recognized for the first time, highlighting their mitigation and adaptation potential.   Loss and damage fund: The final text establishing a loss and damage fund states that countries have decided “to establish new funding arrangements for assisting developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, in responding to loss and damage, including with a focus on addressing loss and damage by providing and assisting in mobilizing new and additional resources, and that these new arrangements complement and include sources, funds, processes and initiatives under and outside the [UNFCCC] and the Paris Agreement.” This is seen by many as the most significant achievement of COP27, but much work remains to operationalize the fund. ► EESI Briefing: Climate Change Loss and Damage Mitigation Work Programme: At COP26, countries established the Mitigation Work Programme in recognition that more work is needed to rapidly reduce emissions. At COP27, countries were charged with figuring out how to create processes to push each other to increase mitigation ambition and implementation. The final text of this decision was intensively negotiated and ultimately did not create any robust ways to catalyze emissions reductions. Observers have noted that this issue represents one of the key areas of tension as the UNFCCC process aims to shift from the negotiations to implementation. ► EESI Briefing: What’s on the Table for the Negotiations Key COP27 outcomes: Carbon Brief wrapped up its coverage of COP27, providing an in-depth analysis of key outcomes inside and outside of the COP, including on the negotiations, international pledges, and the road to COP28. Carbon Brief notes that while the COP27 Presidency promised an implementation COP, “the results were a mixed bag, achieving more on the impacts of climate change than its causes.”   Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Sue Biniaz in a discussion outside of the negotiations. Credit: UNFCCC Kerry’s closing statement: In his COP27 closing statement, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry noted the importance of several initiatives in driving down emissions, including the Global Methane Pledge, the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership, the Green Shipping Challenge, and the First Movers Coalition. He also expressed support for countries like Australia, Brazil, and Mexico that have increased their ambition to limit global warming. Kerry underscored that the Inflation Reduction Act “will help countries deliver stronger climate ambition anywhere by driving down the cost of clean technologies everywhere.” Looking ahead, Kerry outlined three priorities: pressing for all major economies to align their 2030 targets with 1.5 degrees Celsius, delivering climate finance at scale, and working with the COP28 Presidency, the United Arab Emirates, to ensure a meaningful outcome of the first global stocktake under the Paris Agreement. ► EESI Article: “COP27 Announcement Tracker: Key Announcements from the 2022 U.N. Climate Summit” Markey on loss and damage: Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) issued a press release yesterday applauding the new loss and damage fund. He said: “A quarter of the CO2 in our atmosphere is red, white and blue. The United States has a moral and planetary responsibility to partner—not prohibit—on equitable climate finance. Today’s announcement is a historic step as the United States joins other nations in acknowledging the moral and economic need to address the irreversible and unavoidable harms of climate change faced by developing nations ... I will continue to advocate within Congress for robust funding and work to ensure multilateral institutions do much more to aid the international fight against climate change. We cannot leave the countries least responsible for the climate crisis to be sacrifice zones and bear this horrific burden alone.” Sen. Markey attended COP27 along with Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). ► EESI Briefing: The Role of International Climate Finance   COP26 President Alok Sharma speaks with fellow negotiators. Credit: UNFCCC U.N. Secretary-General COP27 statement: U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has been a clear voice rallying for decisive climate action throughout COP27. In his final statement at the conference, Guterres called the establishment of a loss and damage fund a “much-needed political signal to rebuild broken trust.” But, he said, “our planet is still in the emergency room,” and world leaders still need to take urgent action to reduce emissions and massively invest in renewable energy. “Unlike the stories from the Sinai Peninsula, we cannot wait for a miracle from a mountaintop,” Guterres said. “It will take each and every one of us fighting in the trenches each and every day. We can and must win this battle for our lives.”   Least Developed Countries perspective: Following the close of COP27, Chair of the Least Developed Countries Group Madeleine Diouf Sarr of Senegal released a statement reacting to the outcomes. “This is the first time in many years that our nations do not come out of COP empty-handed,” she said. Sarr stressed that the loss and damage fund transitional committee established at COP27 needs to immediately start working on the mechanisms for how the new fund will actually operate. While this new fund is a step forward for climate action, Sarr pointed out that developed countries have yet to fulfill their promise of delivering $100 billion in climate finance annually. “It’s now been three years since we expected to see these sums delivered,” she said, “but the funds received remain far from what was promised.”   U.K. views on COP27 outcomes: COP26 President Alok Sharma provided remarks at the COP27 closing plenary to reflect on the negotiations and his time as COP president. Sharma recognized the “historic” progress on loss and damage, but said that “the critical work now lies ahead.” He also emphasized that this was not all celebration, as COP27 was a fight to hold the line on commitments made at COP26 in Glasgow and there was no progress on these commitments in the final text. He called out the lack of language on emissions peaking before 2025 and no clear follow-through on the phasedown of coal or phaseout of all fossil fuels. Concluding, Sharma said: “All of us need to look ourselves in the mirror and consider if we have fully risen to the challenge over the past two weeks.” View from the COP27 Green Zone. Credit: UNFCCC Find all of EESI’s COP27 Resources here. Press Release: EESI Executive Director Daniel Bresette, who attended the first week of the conference, released a statement on Sunday that provides additional perspective on the outcomes of COP27.   Announcements tracker: EESI tracked 75 announcements at COP27, including 25 international declarations and announcements that include the U.S. The announcements are organized by involvement of the federal government or subnational governments and by topic, including adaptation, clean energy, climate finance, forests, shipping, and the ocean.   Reports tracker: EESI tracked 39 reports, tools, and plans launched at COP27. Reports cover topics from early warning systems and climate vulnerability to the emissions gap and further actions the U.S. needs to take to meet its climate targets.    U.S. leaders at COP27: This tracker compiles a list of U.S. elected and appointed officials who attended COP27, including 24 members of Congress, 25 federal officials, three governors, and more than a dozen state and local officials.   Post-COP27 Congressional briefing: Join us on December 2 from 3-4:30 p.m. for a Congressional briefing, Climate Summit Recap: Key Outcomes and What Comes Next, featuring Jesse Young from the State Department, Preety Bhandari of the World Resources Institute, Helen Mountford of ClimateWorks, and Casey Katims of the U.S. Climate Alliance. RSVP here.   Articles: EESI articles on COP27 include coverage of progress on COP26 announcements, what the Inflation Reduction Act means for international climate efforts, the connections between climate change and biodiversity, and a look at sea level rise and adaptation efforts.    Additional resources: EESI’s COP27 Congressional briefings covered the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report, loss and damage, natural climate solutions, and issues on the table for the negotiations. EESI has also organized resources according to COP27’s thematic days, which included finance, science, youth, decarbonization, adaptation, and agriculture during week 1 and gender, water, civil society, energy, biodiversity, and solutions during week 2. If you missed an issue of COP27 Dispatch, all issues are archived here.   EESI all year: The best way to keep up with EESI resources all year is to subscribe to Climate Change Solutions, EESI’s biweekly newsletter. Questions about COP27? Reach out to EESI Policy Manager Anna McGinn with your question and we will get back to you or include the information in an upcoming newsletter. Thanks for reading!   This newsletter covering COP27 will be running from November 7 to November 21. If you thought this newsletter was interesting, forward it to someone you know! If you were forwarded this edition, sign up here and join us for COP28 Dispatch next year! Thank you to EESI staff for their contributions: Anna McGinn, Savannah Bertrand, Emma Johnson, and Amaury Laporte Environmental and Energy Study Institute  Daniel Bresette, Executive Director EESI is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established in 1984 by a bipartisan Congressional caucus to provide timely information and develop innovative policy solutions that set us on a cleaner, more secure and sustainable energy path.