Experts weigh in on what COP27 should focus on

Climate finance and climate adaptation are likely to be the key topics focused on at COP27, according to experts from Stanford University.

The climate conference opens in Egypt this Sunday, with representatives from 200 governments across the globe set to attend.

Poorer countries are suffering the most from the effects of the climate crisis, despite contributing the least to global emissions, such as Pakistan which recently experienced record-breaking floods.

In 2009, at a UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen, it was agreed $100 billion of climate funding would be achieved each year by 2020, but this target was missed.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated that just $80 billion was provided in total in 2021.

Alicia Seiger, managing director of the Precourt Institute for Energy’s Sustainable Finance Initiative, said: ‘Addressing the human suffering as a result of climate change, known as “loss and damage,” will be the focal point of COP27. Less developed countries are feeling the impacts from climate change first and worst. Yet, while some progress has been made on increasing cross-border investment for mitigation, very little serious effort has been made to figure out how to compensate poorer countries for their losses.

‘This topic was always going to be on the table, but the recent catastrophic floods in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Chad, coupled with devastating drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, are making clear the suffering developing countries are enduring despite having contributed the least to global emissions. COP27 will test the bounds of diplomacy in the face of mounting damages.’

Experts also expect more discussions on climate adaptation to take place, as this if the first COP in more than five years to take place outside of Europe where the effects of the crisis are being felt.

Adaptation measures should prevent future losses, while also providing social, economic and environmental benefits they say.

Health will be central to the event, with delegates set to talk about decarbonising the health care system, while its hoped detailed plans outlining the transition to renewables will also be set out.  

Seiger said: ‘The Just Energy Transition Partnership, an $8.5 billion multinational venture aimed at accelerating the phaseout of coal in South Africa, was a notable outcome of COP26. The hope for COP27 is to scale this platform by creating replicable models that develop detailed decarbonization plans for emerging economies and channel effective international support for those plans.’

Photo by NOAA