Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Summit It was supposed to close yesterday and it didn’t. This Saturday at first hour the pPublication of a new draft of the agreements and it hasn’t been done. While the negotiations continue beyond the official ‘deadline’, in the corridors of the climate summit the accounts of the status of the deal clash. Egypt affirms that it has achieved a balanced text. Europe argues that the debate still has many edges to resolve and that, if a good agreement is not reached, it would be willing to leave without signing. The last activists at the summit denounce, from the doors of the plenary sessions, that we are on the verge of “an agreement that does not measure up to the severity of the climate crisis.”
The final text of the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement is still being debated behind closed doors. In the last twelve hours, the positions of the parties seem to have sharpened. It is still not clear who is winning the pulse. This Saturday morning, less than half an hour apart, Egypt and Europe have held two press appearances to explain the status of the talks. The Egyptians have alluded to a “breakthrough” in the final draft of the text. The European spokesmen, for their part, have warned that the pact that is on the table at the moment could be a “step back” in the fight against the climate crisis and they have threatened to walk out of the negotiations if something more ambitious is not achieved.
Red line
The vice-president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, has defended that the final agreement of this summit cannot be a “regression regarding the Glasgow pact” and explained that Europe’s objective in these negotiations is to ensure the global commitment to limit the global increase in temperatures below 1.5 degrees on average. If this objective is not collected, all the European ministers they could leave the climate summit without signing the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement. “No agreement is better than a bad agreement“, Timmermans highlighted this Saturday.
For days Europe has been defending that its red line at this summit is to achieve a more ambitious commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in all regions of the world. If this is achieved, the Twenty-seven would be ready to support the creation of a new fund to deal with loss and damage in the global south. This initiative, according to the proposal reported to date, would only go ahead if large emitters such as China or India agree to further cut their current levels. The creation of this fund, in turn, would only be focused “mainly to the most vulnerable countriesto the climate crisis.
“balanced” text
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Shortly after Europe’s statements on the state of the negotiations, at the other end of the venue that is hosting the climate summit, Egypt has delivered a radically opposite speech. The chairman of the Egyptian summit, sameh shoukryhas explained that the latest version of the text is much “more balanced”. After negotiations that have lasted all night and that continue this Saturday morning, the Egyptian spokesman affirms that some aspects of the text have been modified. Both “of words” and “of content”.
It is not yet clear what kind of changes have been made to the text. But everything indicates that it could be related to the two major issues of friction that have starred in the talks in Sharm el-Sheikh. This is the case, for example, of the mentions about the future of fossil fuels (which practically do not appear in the drafts published to date). Or to the final text on loss and damage (in which, according to the denouncement of the countries of the global south, there is still no clear agreement on how to finance climate damage in the most vulnerable areas of the planet).