In November 2022, the COP27 climate conference took place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
But what is COP? What were the outcomes of COP27? And what does it all mean for you and your family?
COP stands for “Conference of the Parties” of the UNFCCC (The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).
The UNFCCC was formed in 1992 at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 154 nations signed an international environmental treaty to combat dangerous human interference with the climate system.
The treaty demanded ongoing scientific research and international policy agreements designed to allow ecosystems to adapt to climate change, to protect food production and to enable global economic development to proceed in increasingly sustainable ways.
In 1994, the UNFCCC then established a headquarters in Bonn, Germany. The major decision-making body of UNFCCC is COP, which meets annually to assess progress on all things related to climate change. The first of these annual gatherings, COP1, was held in Berlin in 1995 and the most recent was COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh. COP28 will be held next year in Dubai.
COP27 was attended by an estimated 35,000 delegates and hundreds of issues were explored related to climate progress, including development, finance, technology, human rights, local communities, and gender. Many of these discussions tookake place through side events in parallel with the official negotiations.
Two of the most positive outcomes of COP27 as a whole were:
The main headline-grabbing outcome of COP27 was a historic decision to establish and operate a loss and damage fund to provide financial assistance to poor nations stricken by climate disaster.
The loss and damage relates both to severe impacts of extreme weather on the infrastructure of these countries, and also to the financial assistance needed to restore the country to some kind of normality.
Agreements and collaborations were also reached between various groups of nations to work together to tackle issues such as decarbonisation, planned transition to clean energy, and increasing resilience for people living in the most climate-vulnerable communities.
However, many observers felt that COP27 did not make enough progress in agreeing to continue to work towards a global temperature rise limit of 1.5°C.
The 1.5°C target is the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement. It refers to the average global temperature in relation to pre-industrial levels. 1.5°C is an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and the planet as a whole.
According to the WMO ( World Meteorological Organization) there is a 50:50 chance of average global temperature reaching 1.5°C in the next five years. So urgent action needs to be taken at all levels.
Countries have previously committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming. If they are likely to have difficulty doing this, they are supposed to review their own targets every year at COP; a process known as the ratchet. However, at COP27 some countries tried – unsuccessfully – to renege on the 1.5°C goal, and to abolish the ratchet.
But whatever happens at the higher levels of negotiation, there are things that we can all do to support the effort to achieve 1.5°C. Let’s take a look .
After COP26, we published an article Is it time to make your pledge to the planet? In this article we explored ten steps that every one of us can take to contribute to the effort to achieve 1.5°C.
These ten steps are:
The good news is that not only do the above steps help the planet, but many of them can also save you money. So do take a few minutes to read that article to find out in more detail what you and your family can do to achieve both these goals.
We hope that this article has helped to raise your awareness of current issues regarding climate change, and how you and your family can play your part in helping the planet.
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