COP27 must deliver a ‘down-payment’ on climate solutions that match the scale of the problem, according to the Secretary General.
The annual Conference of the Parties (COP), which brings together leaders from around the globe to tackle climate change, is due to kick-off on November 6th in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, with the vision of moving from negotiations and ‘planning for implementation’ for all the pledges and promises made at last year’s COP26 conference in Glasgow.
While many pledges were made during the COP26 conference, so far only 23 out of the 193 countries have actually submitted their plans to the UN and, this year more ambitious 2030 emissions targets are needed, according to the UN, as current plans are ‘still not enough to avoid catastrophic warming’.
The big three objectives on the agenda at this year’s COP conference are said to be:
- Mitigation: how are countries reducing their emissions. It is expected that countries will show how they are going to implement the pact made at COP26.
- Adaptation: how are countries going to adapt to climate change and help others do the same. While it is vital that we work to cut carbon emissions and to slow global warming, climate change is already here and countries need to adapt to the consequences of climate change in order to protect their people.
- Climate finance: every year rich developed nations promise $100 billion but according to the UN this is not being delivered and official reports show that this target is not being hit. An outcome of COP27 is that the UN hopes this pledge will actually become a reality in 2023.
