COP27: instructions for use

The 27th United Nations conference on climate change, COP27, will be held from 6 - 18 November. The event is considered to be an extremely important step to achieving reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in institutional terms. COP stands for “Conference of the Parties”, the parties being the countries that have signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, established in 1992 to combat the climate crisis on a global level. The Conference of the Parties has been held every year since COP1 in Berlin in 1995, except for 2020. The major players at COP are the government delegations from the member countries, which include politicians and experts on various topics. Then there are the United Nations representatives and various observers, ranging from NGOs, IGOs (intergovernmental organisations), and members of the press from across the globe. On average, around 25,000 people take part in COP each year, but this year at least 40,000 delegates are expected to attend.

The negotiations and meetings among delegates will be held in the so-called Blue Zone, hosted in the International Convention Center in Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea. In addition to these, several other events organised by governments and accredited observers are planned. The Green Zone is a 22,000 m² space where the public can meet and take part in the various initiatives. On Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 November, the heads of the various states and governments will join the “Climate Implementation Summit”, which will also be attended by the new Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. But despite what you might think, «during the conferences negotiations are not always developed in plenary sessions with the delegates of all countries present,» notes Federico Brocchieri, spokesperson and member of the technical negotiating team of Italy and the European Union, in his short essay I negoziati sul clima. In fact, the really important discussions are held in smaller meetings which journalists are not permitted to join. «The reason why informal settings are preferred for addressing complex issues lies in the greater confidentiality of these sessions, which often have no observers and only a limited number of delegates present,» explains Brocchieri. «In a nutshell, people can talk more candidly».

But while the decision-making process itself may not be linear, decisions only become official upon approval in the final plenary session. Yet not all COP events result in major agreements, because reaching them requires an intensive process of preliminary, mainly technical negotiations which take place across several summits. The COP summits that led to the most important international climate agreements were those held in 1997 and 2015, which respectively generated the Kyoto Protocol (COP3), reached after three Conferences, and the Paris Agreement (COP21), achieved after nine years of discussion. This year's COP will revolve around six key topics: Just transition; Food security; Innovative finance for climate and development; Investing in the future of energy; Water security; and finally Climate change and the sustainability of vulnerable communities. During last year’s summit in Glasgow, in the United Kingdom, many crucial decisions were tackled, partly in response to post-pandemic pressures. This year’s conference is considered less urgent, but progress still needs to be made to implement the decisions taken at COP26. For example, one of the priorities is to ensure the full operational implementation of the Santiago Network, established to provide tools and technical support to vulnerable economies, and it is expected that an agreement on the executive terms of the project will be reached in Egypt.

On the eve of the event, COP27 has already been subject to much criticism in light of the poor respect for human rights by the host country, Egypt. The famous activist Greta Thunberg has signed a petition calling on Egypt to release political prisoners, and has announced that she will not be attending the event. This is for «many reasons», she says, but especially because «the space for civil society this year is extremely limited». She discussed this during the presentation of her new book, The climate book, in London: according to Thunberg, international climate conferences «are not really working», unless they are used as an opportunity to organise powerful environmental demonstrations.

Rich countries must sign a «historic pact» with the poor on the climate, otherwise «we will be doomed», warned the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, in an interview with the Guardian on the eve of the summit. The gap between rich and developing nations must be overcome if humanity is to have any hope of avoiding the most devastating outcomes of climate collapse, said the head of the UN: «There is no way we can avoid a catastrophic situation, if the developed and developing world are not able to establish a historic pact because, at the present level, we will be doomed», added the Portuguese diplomat.