Gearing up for COP27
In November 2022, climate policy makers, scientists, civil society, journalists and the business sector all gather for two weeks of interaction on climate. This time in Africa, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. What has happened since last year? What can we expect from COP27? Andreas Gyllenhammar, Chief Sustainability Officer at Sweco, dives into the expectations and analyses the setting of this year’s UN Climate Conference, COP27.
What’s a COP, again?
COP is the yearly summit where the Conference of the Parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meet to advance global climate negotiations. This was the mechanism that made the Paris Agreement a reality in 2015. The two-week long meeting engages the entire world, bringing together tens of thousands of delegates representing nations and civil society. I have been attending many COPs as a representative for the business community, belonging to the BINGO observer group.
Where did we end last year in Glasgow?
The COP26 in Glasgow, ended with raised climate ambition from many stakeholders. Although it was completely in line with the strategy from the hosting UK government, I think many were surprised by the flood of voluntary commitments made from various sectors, outside the formal actors, the nations. These ”coalitions of the willing” are a way to ”short circuit” the tedious procedures that surround the consensus designed in formal negotiations. By gathering frontrunners (not only nations, but also business sectors, cities etc) speed and higher ambition could be achieved. Leaving Glasgow, about 90% of global emissions were covered by net zero climate goals, putting us on track for a best case of 1.8°C temperature rise. IF, and it’s a major if, everyone delivers on their committed contribution. My analysis at the time was that it would move the discussion and focus from an ambition gap to an implementation gap. When decarbonising goals are set, we need roadmaps and strategies in order to materialise climate action.
An intense year of climate related events
Enter 2022, with a number of intertwined crises spreading all over the world. The effects of the COVID-19 still very present, were accompanied by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a European war with global effects on food prices and availability. The energy price race is throwing many European countries into crisis mode, again. The short-term climate effects will be an increase in carbon emissions, but the long-term effects will be an intensified and accelerated move out of Russian fossil fuels dependency. Suddenly, the decarbonisation journey got unexpected help from and even stronger driver, Energy freedom.
This year also saw the latest edition of the IPCC Assessment Report. A sobering read, full of dire warnings, but also solutions and roadmaps out of the climate crisis.
There are a lot of good signs of climate action as well. It’s not yet visible in either global or national emissions accounting, but we see the signs in our project portfolio at Sweco. A year ago, we cheered internally over the increasing number of pilot projects where green steel production, battery factories and electric aviation, among many things, were starting to happen. This year, they are clearly being scaled up. It’s not only more of the same. It’s more and faster. The speed up, scale up is ongoing. In industry, it’s moving faster. In energy, a bit slower. However, since these sectors are melting together, they learn from each other on how to gain speed by working in innovative and parallel processes.
Politics have been a bit of a roller coaster. EU’s plan for Energy Freedom, the REPowerEU, released in May, contains a huge transformation playbook for what’s to come. Interestingly, the cost of shifting towards renewables equals the sum that Europe pays for Russian fossil fuels.
In US, the Biden administration is set to restore global leadership, immediately re-joining the Paris agreement after Trump’s withdrawal. In August 2022, the US President signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and thereby releasing the largest climate and energy spending package in US history. Aiming for a 40% CO2 reduction in 2030, the package includes spending USD 600 billion, of which roughly half is dedicated to supporting renewable energy and climate resilience.
Extreme weather also made its mark in 2022. Drying up European rivers, disrupting transportation systems, causing heat stress in urban areas. Asia got its share with the prolonged heat in India and most recently the extreme flooding in Pakistan, displacing 8 million people and leaving the population in great hardship for the coming years.
What can we expect from the weeks before the COP27?
Well, this is the time of agenda setting, report releasing and intense preparation of all the events taking place in Sharm-El-Sheik, starting November 7. What we have seen so far is that the build up momentum ahead of the conference has been slower than what is usually the case. To a large extent, this is due to the current world situation. Things are turbulent with a heap load of crisis management, responding to war, safety, energy, food, materials, and the basic needs of populations. However, a lot of momentum has been building up in the very last weeks. The reports are coming out. Among them:
- The WMO greenhouse gas bulletin is showing record high emissions levels
- The UNEP Emissions Gap Report clearly states that we are out of time for a credible pathway towards the 1.5°C target
- The State of Climate Action, showing that we’re heading for 2.4-2.8°C warming under current climate commitments
- The Lancet countdown on Health and climate change, noting the worsening impacts on human health and wellbeing
The above reading is certainly not for the faint-of-heart, and we can expect more to come out in the following weeks. They are, however, very valuable input approaching COP, as they provide a solid basis for the meeting and narrow down the discussion scope.
Who will turn up?
The forecasts are not yet published, but given the location, we can expect a lot less participants on site than the 40,000 attendees in Glasgow last year. We could also expect that the current global situation would lower the attention from both media and world leaders.
What will be on the agenda?
The COP agenda is very important for the outcome of the talks. Historically, what has been discussed is also what then eventually ends up into policy. I note that there is a push for setting the issue of Loss&Damage higher up on the agenda. To me, this is a partly due to the geographical location of this year’s COP, Africa, but also as a direct feedback on the many extreme weather events that have been impacting developing countries around the globe. The less we manage to mitigate emissions, the more we need to focus on adaptation. And the less we manage to cope with adaptation, the more we need to handle climate losses & damage. This might be the first COP that has to cope with pressure to deliver on all these three climate perspectives.
We could also expect a lot of focus on climate finance, food security, energy and climate adaptation.
What is the expected outcome?
As last year was about raising the ambition level, this year has been labelled ”The Implementation COP”. It means more focus on following up on commitments, climate financing and on sharing best practice for scalable solutions. The geopolitical turbulent state of the world will certainly affect both the negotiations and the outcome. But, in what way? It can go either way. There is a risk that the tensions will result in the parties moving down into the trenches once again, resulting in loss of trust that was the normal position before reaching the Paris Agreement. On the other hand, the pressure could bring parties together and strengthen the international climate cooperation. In a few weeks, we will know.
About the author of this article
Andreas Gyllenhammar has been attending UNFCCC COP meetings since 2009 as an observer for the business and industry group or as a part of the Swedish delegation. He is Sweco’s liaison officer for WBCSD (the World Business Council on Sustainable Development) and a renowned climate analyst, working with clients to shape climate strategies by interpret science, market shifts to identify and capture opportunities in the transition towards a fossil free future.