COP27: distress signal

As world leaders congregate in Egypt for the UN’s climate change summit, known better as COP27, UN Chief Antonio Guterres has warned that “our planet is sending a distress signal”. He is not wrong. The past few years have indeed seen some of the most severe signs of a climate raging, a new UN report revealing that the past eight years were the eight hottest ever recorded while the floods in Pakistan this year highlighting the dangers the Global South faces as countries in the North continue to ignore the havoc their decadent plunder of the planet’s resources has brought about elsewhere in the world. It is for this reason that the UN secretary-general has called on COP27 to “provide a clear and time-bound roadmap on closing the finance gap for addressing loss and damage”, saying this will be “a central litmus test for success at COP27.” In fact, perhaps ‘loss and damage’ is one of the most pressing agenda items at this year’s climate moot.

As chair of G-77, and as a direct affectee of climate change induced disaster this year, many eyes will be on Pakistan to put forward a case on behalf of the countries of the Global South. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who is in Egypt, has called the moot a “watershed in humanity’s fight against climate change and global warming”. There is hope that the countries that are to be affected most by global warming – countries that have not contributed to climate change – will manage to convince the developed world that it needs to deliver on its commitment on climate finance and loss and damage. In essence, COP27 is a call for climate justice.

The ‘Glasgow Climate Pact’ after COP26 last year had explicitly mentioned the need to move away from coal power and subsidies for fossil fuels. The deal however did not include a fund for ‘loss and damage’ and richer nations did not commit to ensure funds to help poor nations deal with such loss and damage. What is needed now is to press for what was promised to the developing countries by the developed world – financing for mitigation and adaptation. The logic is not aid or charity but something far simpler: developed countries have caused more harm to the environment than developing countries. Their carbon emissions remain higher, but they are amongst the least vulnerable countries against the impact of climate change. It is on them to help struggling and vulnerable countries with adaptation, survival and loss and damage. Ultimately, it is continued political will that is likely to make a difference. We have seen some governments making pledges to attract foreign funding, and then failing to fulfil their promises. That cannot happen now, with countries like Pakistan facing an existential challenge of survival in the face of ceaseless climate disasters. Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman has been a vocal advocate for financial help for mitigation and adaptation. One hopes the world listens when she speaks, because as put by the climate change minister “It is of paramount importance that the world now bands together in this fight”. This is not a fight between the Global North and the Global South because the developed world can only delay the havoc and chaos countries in the South are facing at the moment, for no fault of theirs.