“Don’t let anyone tell you, here or anywhere, that the EU is backtracking. Don’t let them tell you that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is killing the European Green Deal and we are in a gas rush,” European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans said from the podium.
He thus announced that, thanks to the adoption of several pieces of legislation in recent weeks, “the EU is ready to update its commitments”. To reduce emissions by at least 57% by 2030 compared to 1990, compared to at least 55% currently.
An announcement coldly received by climate activists. “The climate emergency we find ourselves in does not deserve crumbs from the EU,” criticized Chiara Martinelli of Climate Action Network Europe
And EU pledges are unlikely to assuage the anger of developing countries, those least responsible for global warming but on the front lines of its devastating and mounting impacts.
– “Absence de leadership” –
“The absence of leadership and ambition in terms of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions is worrying”, launched the Senegalese Minister of the Environment Alioune Ndoye, on behalf of the group of Least Developed Countries, denouncing three decades “marked with disappointment”.
“How many COPs have we called for urgent climate action? How many more will be needed? big polluters.
Many participants at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh are also waiting to see how the G20 leaders meeting in Bali on Tuesday and Wednesday will take into account the climate crisis and their ambition to act, hoping for good news that would give a boost to the negotiations in Egypt.
Tough negotiations, which must pass from Wednesday in the hands of ministers who will have three days to resolve differences by the scheduled end of the COP on Friday – but these conferences often overflow.
The president of this 27th UN climate conference Sameh Choukri called on delegations on Tuesday to “make the necessary compromises on certain subjects”, while reflecting the “climate emergency”.
The first draft of the final declaration published overnight from Monday to Tuesday is only a bulleted list, with however the reaffirmation in a few words of certain disputed principles such as “the urgency of acting so that the objective of 1 .5°C remains within the realm of possibility”.
The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to limit warming to well below 2°C compared to the pre-industrial era, if possible 1.5°C. While each tenth of a degree leads to an increase in climate disasters, the signatories of the agreement committed themselves last year at COP26 to “keep alive” the most ambitious objective.
– “rigged system” –
But observers say Saudi Arabia and China have made known their reluctance, already expressed in the past, to see this reference again in the final text, as the world heads towards a catastrophic warming of 2.8°C. vs.
“To continue on the same path exposes humanity to serious consequences,” warned the Prime Minister of Samoa Fiame Naomi Mataafa on Tuesday, denouncing the “flat” ambitions of the main transmitters.
Another crucial point at the heart of the negotiations, the demand of developing countries for the creation of a dedicated mechanism to finance the “losses and damages” already suffered due to the impacts of global warming.
The draft text only mentions the “need for financial provisions to respond to loss and damage”, a formulation used since the start of the conference on November 6 by Europeans and Americans, reluctant to set up a new specific structure.
But the countries of the South are not giving up the fight. “Antigua and Barbuda will not leave here without a fund for loss and damage”, insisted Conrod Hunte, negotiator for the Caribbean state who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), also attacking the fossil fuels.
“Countries at this COP come to make big speeches” but some “are only concerned about keeping the fossil fuel industry as profitable as possible, for as long as possible,” he charged. “The system is rigged at our expense (…) This deception cannot continue, not anymore”.
