A forced march closes the COP 27 with a new agreement for damages and losses due to climate change

The United Nations Conference on Climate Change COP 27 closed this Sunday with a forced agreement to provide financing for “loss and damage” to the vulnerable countries most affected by climate disasters.

“This result moves us forward,” said Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change. “We have determined a path forward in a decades-long conversation about financing loss and damage, deliberating how we address the impacts on communities whose lives and livelihoods have been blighted by the worst impacts of climate change.”

Against a difficult geopolitical backdrop, COP 27 resulted in countries issuing a package of decisions reaffirming their commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The package also strengthened countries’ action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change, as well as boosting the financial, technological and capacity-building support needed by developing countries.

The creation of a specific fund for loss and damage marked an important step forward, with the issue added to the official agenda and adopted for the first time at COP 27.

Governments took the pioneering decision to establish new financing arrangements, as well as a dedicated fund, to help developing countries respond to loss and damage. The governments also agreed to set up a ‘transition committee’ to make recommendations on how to operationalize both the new funding arrangements and the fund at COP 28 next year. The first meeting of the transition committee is expected to take place before the end of March 2023.

The Parties also agreed on the institutional arrangements to operationalize the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage, to catalyze technical assistance to developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

COP 27 saw significant progress on adaptation, with governments agreeing on how to advance the Global Goal on Adaptation, which will conclude at COP28 and inform the first Global Stocktake, improving resilience among the most vulnerable.

In addition, new commitments, totaling more than $230 million, were made to the Adaptation Fund at COP 27. These commitments will help many more vulnerable communities adapt to climate change through concrete adaptation solutions.

Great concern was expressed that the target of developed country Parties to jointly mobilize $100 billion per year by 2020 has not yet been met, and developed countries were urged to meet the target, and urged multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to mobilize climate finance. .

At COP 27, discussions continued on setting a ‘new quantified collective target on climate finance’ in 2024, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries.

COP 27 results

Technology

COP27 saw the launch of a new five-year work program at COP 27 to promote climate technology solutions in developing countries.

Mitigation

A mitigation work program has been launched in Sharm el-Sheikh, aimed at urgently increasing mitigation ambition and implementation. The work program will start immediately after COP 27 and continue until 2030, with at least two global dialogues per year. Governments were also called upon to review and strengthen the 2030 targets in their national climate plans by the end of 2023, as well as accelerate efforts to phase out coal power and remove inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.

world inventory

Delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 27 concluded the second technical dialogue on the first global stocktaking, a mechanism to increase ambition under the Paris Agreement. The UN Secretary General will convene a ‘climate ambition summit’ in 2023, before the conclusion of the balance at COP 28 next year.