Minster for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen and Senator Jenny McAllister, Assistant Minster for Climate Change and Energy at the Australia Stakeholder briefing at COP27
Although I’ve attended several climate summits over the years, nothing quite prepared me for the spectacle and scale of the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), which is in its second week in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Set in a sprawling complex comprising pavilions hosted by many of the 165 government signatories from around the world, thousands of delegates have gathered to progress the Paris Agreement and action to address climate change.
COP27 is an implementation COP and is focused on filling in more detail that underpins much of the high-level commitments made and progressed since last year’s COP26 in Glasgow. Also dubbed the African COP, the opportunity to spotlight the African continent’s special needs and circumstances in respect of climate change is getting plenty of focus and is extremely relevant to many of the technical issues being negotiated.
The first week saw negotiations kick off on the contentious issue of ‘loss and damage’, the first time the issue is on the official agenda for COP. This centres around how developed nations should compensate developing countries for the climate change-fuelled extreme weather events they suffer despite not significantly contributing to GHG emissions. Developing countries want to set up a new financing facility or program to provide technical assistance and funding to address climate-related loss and damages, with a clear road map toward that goal established by the end of the COP. This is proving tricky for negotiators but should be helped by comments from leaders like Joe Biden who addressed COP27 saying the US wanted to engage constructively on the issue in detail.
Another significant issue being debated at this year’s COP is the continued work on Article 6, a highly technical part of the Paris Agreement which (when finalised) will contain the detailed rules around the trade in emissions reductions between countries and a central UN mechanism to trade credits generated from emissions reduction projects. The detail of the rules have been subject to negotiation at every COP since Paris and continue to prove difficult to resolve. Reports from Australian negotiators on the ground are optimistic about the ability to make meaningful progress during COP 27.
The Australia pavilion is significantly larger than previous years with space for a steady stream of events and is humming with the buzz of the many Australian government, industry, academic and NGO representatives all delighted to be part of ‘Team Australia’. The coffee diplomacy game is strong (most people I’ve met have declared the coffee from the Australia pavilion the best) and while there seem to be high levels of support for Australia’s just-announced bid to host COP 31 in 2026, many are pointing to the need for much stronger commitments from Australia to both reduce its emissions and step up its support for the Pacific region.
Speaking at a briefing for the Australian delegation on Monday morning, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen declared “Australia is back” as a partner for friends and allies interested in real action on climate. Minister Bowen and Assistant Minister Jenny McAllister, who spent the morning hosting a Pacific Women Negotiator’s breakfast, also spoke of their focus in ensuring our Pacific family’s voices are heard in the negotiations. Chatting to the ministers on the sidelines revealed a packed schedule with requests for over 130 bilateral talks this week. Officials responsible for shepherding them around agreed it was the busiest schedule of ministerial meetings they’d ever managed at a COP.
Outside of the official negotiations there are a dizzying amount of events being held in the pavilions, many providing platforms to political leaders alongside climate luminaries. In the course of one day I attended a international business community briefing on the negotiations, Chris Bowen and Jenny McAllister’s briefing, met the folks from the World Green Building Council at the buildings pavilion, attended Germanwatch’s launch of the 2023 Climate Change Performance Index, a briefing from US officials on the detail of the Inflation Reduction Act and a joint EU-International Renewable Energy Agency panel on green hydrogen trade at which Frans Timmermanns declared green hydrogen had the potential to redraw the map of Africa for economic development and prosperity.
With only days to go and much left to be resolved on key issues like loss and damage and negotiations on Article 6, things show no sign of slowing down!