uA result achieved in extra time but also a great missed opportunity. In a nutshell this is what happened to Cop27 of Sharm El-Sheikh. In fact, at the last minute, an agreement was found for set up the Loss and Damage fund. But no significant action has been taken on reducing emissions. The possibility of limiting global warming to 1.5°C thus risks disappearingwith disastrous consequences for the world.
Loss&Damage at Cop27, a fund for the end of the world?
Waited for three decades, the Loss&Damage agreement will make it possible to support the economic and social reconstruction of poor and vulnerable communities. Those brought to their knees by climatic disasters increasingly frequent. It is estimated that by 2030 approx 290-580 billion dollars additional to aid for adaptation.
And the Fund will have access to various sources of funding. As Secretary-General Guterres proposed at the last United Nations Assembly, even, for example, taxing the extra profits of fossil fuel companies. Bearing in mind that between 2000 and 2019 they made profits of over 30 trillion dollars, no small amount.
But, warns Mariagrazia Midulla, climate and energy manager of WWF Italy, returning from Sharm El-Sheikh, this fund risks becoming an “end of the world fund” if countries don’t move much faster to reduce emissions and limit heating to below 1.5°C.
Cop27 and the reduction of emissions
Failing to insert any reference to this very important issue in the final decisions of the COP27, the leaders have therefore missed a unique opportunity to accelerate the phase out of fossil fuels. This without minimizing the responsibility of governments, everyone, who must make and keep their commitments. «Today they are like condominiums who, while the building burns, observe it talking about condominium shares: the climate crisis must be the priority, only by really facing it, stopping its progression, everything else makes sense», continues Midulla.
According to the latest reports of theIPCC and of IEAto be in line with the critical threshold of 1.5°C, emissions must peak globally by 2025 and decrease by 43% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. “For this reason – says Stefano Ciafani national president of Legambiente – an important contribution can come from the phasing-out of subsidies to fossil fuels by 2030 which can allow for a 10% reduction globally. At the same time, the decarbonisation of the electricity sector with the phasing out of coal, by 2030 for OECD countries and 2040 globally, and of fossil gas by 2035 for OECD countries and 2040 globally. Otherwise it will not be possible to keep the 1.5°C target alive.’
The countries most affected by climate change
The agreement on Loss & Damage however, it is seen positively by many: «It is the political recognition that the climate emergency is a fact of everyone, and can no longer be ignored. And whoever pollutes or has polluted the most must play his part », is the point of view of Fairtrade. According to the international fair trade certification system, the most important result of Cop27 is the attention paid to the countries most affected by climate change and their participation in the Conference: in Sharm el Sheikh, the Fairtrade delegation included farmers from Asia and Africa. How Pablito Aquino, Philippine coconut farmer who survived the last three typhoons most devastating on the planet, which have hit his country which he has invited to “moderate our greed”.
Extreme weather phenomena are not only disastrous from an environmental point of view but also for the humanitarian consequences. The reduction in productivity in some areas of the planet has dramatic consequences for entire populations. Just think of the recent one flood in Pakistan as the hurricanes that devastated Central America in 2020. Fairtrade has symbolically represented it with the first non-fungible banana (NFB), a virtual installation at the FAO Pavilion, a provocation to say that if we don’t take action, in the not too distant future some products that are part of our daily lives could only be remembered.
Nature has absorbed our emissions, that’s enough
The reference to the importance of nature-based solutions in the final decisions of COP27 was also positive: in a report released during the conference in Egypt, the WWF found that nature has so far absorbed 54% of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions in the last 10 years. But if Nature can help reabsorb the emissions already produced, we certainly cannot afford to add more.
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