‘This could be the Cop where we lose 1.5C,’ warns Alok Sharma, as anxiety grows over a push from some countries to weaken the text.
Brazil would love to host Cop in 2025, according to Marina Silva, the country’s former environment minister and a close ally of its incoming president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is widely expected to be given a ministerial post when he forms his new government.
Indigenous women from the Amazon held a press conference calling out the violence committed against their land and their bodies.
UN climate boss Simon Stiell urged countries to use their remaining time in Egypt to “build the bridge needed” to make progress on 1.5C, adaptation, finance, and loss and damage. Cop president Shoukry seemed confident that the talks would wrap up on time by Friday, but those on the ground think that is highly unlikely and negotiations are going badly.
Developing countries criticised the G7’s loss and damage strategy. My colleague Nina Lakhani reported that the G7 countries – historically the most responsible for the global greenhouse gases causing extreme weather events and slow-onset climate disasters and who have for years delayed and denied the need for a loss and damage fund – are pushing the Global Shield insurance scheme as an alternative.
Three tropical rainforest nations – Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – have signed a strategic alliance to coordinate at their conservation summit at G20.
The family of the Egyptian-British hunger striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah have received proof of life – a hand-written letter from prison.
My colleague Oliver Holmes will be blogging bright and early tomorrow. The theme for the day will be energy, and we’ll be following all the developments, as always. Thanks for joining us.
'This could be the Cop where we lose 1.5C' warns Alok Sharma
Fiona Harvey
Alok Sharma, the former UK cabinet minister who presided over the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow last year, made a spirited defence of the Glasgow climate pact at the opening of the high-level ministerial roundtable discussions on pre-2030 ambition at Cop27, and warned delegates of the binary choice facing them: “We’ll either leave Egypt having kept 1.5C alive or this will be the Cop where we lose 1.5C.”
He said sticking to the global goal of limiting temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels had to be a “red line” for all countries at Cop27, and insisted there could be no “backsliding” from it.
He reminded the gathered ministers of what was achieved last year, in very different geopolitical circumstances from the current conference of the parties.
“At Cop26 we did resolve collectively to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C,” he said. “I have always said what we agreed in Glasgow and Paris has to be the baseline of our ambition. We’ve got to stick to that commitment. We cannot allow any backsliding.”
Alok Sharma presided over complex negotiations at the Glasgow conference last year. Photograph: Tim Hammond/No10 Downing Street
But he warned: “We are already at 1.1C global warming, and I know I don’t have to remind all of you the impact of that around the world. Even at 1.5C we are still going to have devastating outcomes for many millions. As our friend from Bangladesh reminded us, 1.5 needs to be a red line. And this cannot be the Cop where we lose 1.5C.”
He added: “We’ve got to fight for this and every fraction of a degree absolutely makes a difference. It’s the difference … between a tolerable existence and an impossible future.”
He said countries needed to set out clearly how they would cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with the 1.5C target. “We’ve got a G20 leaders’ meeting going on right now,” he said, referring to the meeting of G20 world leaders in Bali now under way. “They need to reaffirm their commitment to Paris and to Glasgow.”
He called on countries that had not yet submitted revised national plans on emissions – called nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – to draw them up urgently. He also called for a faster phasing out of coal and of fossil fuel subsidies. And he called for technical issues in the Cop work programme to be resolved.
He added that keeping 1.5C alive was fundamental to the other key issues of Cop27, including climate finance and the struggles over loss and damage. “The reality is without progress on [cutting emissions] we are going to beyond our ability to adapt and of course I want to see progress made on loss and damage here but unless we stick to [1.5C] all of that is going to be a lot more difficult.”
He concluded starkly: “We’ll either leave Egypt having kept 1.5C alive or this will be the Cop where we lose 1.5C. You need to work out how you want future generations to look upon this Cop and each of us individually as countries. It’s really up to us to decide, I hope we will decide to keep 1.5C alive.”
The warning comes amid anxiety that some countries may be trying to get the wording around 1.5C weakened. Earlier today, Dr Simon Evans of Carbon Brief tweeted that “some parties are pushing for a return to Paris language, which centres on ‘well-below 2C.’”
Denmark and Sweden head the field, China has slumped and Australia has risen slightly but remains near the bottom in a new ranking list of climate performance by civil society groups released at Cop27.
The annual climate change performance index, now in its 18th year, assesses 59 countries and the EU on four measures: emissions, renewable energy, energy use and climate policy.
Compiled by Germanwatch, the NewClimate Institute and Can International, it found no country was yet on a 1.5C pathway.
The top three spots on the table were left blank, reflecting that no one was performing at the level expected to justify such a high ranking. The leader, Denmark, was ranked fourth, followed by Sweden, Chile, Morocco and India. The UK was 11th.
The world’s biggest polluter, China, fell dramatically compared with last year’s rankings, dropping from 38 to 51. The authors found while China was backing renewable energy at substantial levels, it was also continuing to invest in new coal plants and failing to curb rising emissions.
It ranked one spot higher than the US, which climbed three spots to 52 following the passage of an extraordinary $369bn in climate measures included in the Inflation Reduction Act, but was held back by its high per capita emissions and renewable energy share.
The other notable mover was Australia. It jumped four spots from 59 to 55 following the introduction of the Albanese Labor government, which has legislated a new national emissions reduction target for 2030 (a 43% cut compared with 2005 levels) and started work on policies to cut industrial emissions and encourage electric vehicle uptake. The authors said these changes were welcome, but modest, and the target still too weak.
The bottom 10 on the list was dominated by fossil fuel producers: Poland, Australia, Malaysia, Chinese Taipei, Canada, Russia, Korea, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and, in last place, Iran.
Jan Burck of Germanwatch urged countries to use the external shock of the energy crisis to accelerate the expansion of renewables and energy efficiency, and end fossil fuel dependence.
“It’s a moment of truth: how serious are countries about their climate commitments? Today, it becomes evident that the fossil fuel system is still very strong and present.”
Brazil would welcome the opportunity to host the UN climate summit in 2025 if the international community can forgive the havoc caused by the previous Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who backtracked on a commitment to hold Cop25 in 2019, according to Marina Silva, the former environment minister and close ally of incoming president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
“It’s terrible what Bolsonaro did, we lost an opportunity in 2019 and we have a dream to honour that commitment,” Silva told the Guardian.
Brazil’s president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and congress member Marina Silva on the campaign trail in September. Photograph: André Penner/AP
Deforestation of the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, dropped during Silva’s tenure as Lula’s environment minister, but has risen over the past four years under Bolsonaro, who has encouraged illegal loggers, miners and farmers while dismantling law enforcement and other government agencies tasked with protecting the region and its people. Violence against Indigenous people and other environmental defenders also escalated, including the murder of Guardian journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in June.
“It hurts me that environmental defenders like Dom and Bruno had to sacrifice their lives, but we must honour their lives, not just their deaths. We must take the criminals out of this land and ensure the state is present to enforce the law, as well as create alternative sustainable economies that leave the forest intact. No more people should die for this cause, we have to end this cycle of murders,” said Silva.
A major challenge will be ensuring a just transition away from deforestation for all the people of the Amazon – including the illegal loggers, miners and small-scale farmers. “We can facilitate new sustainable economic activities that leave the forest intact, like ecotourism and sustainable fishing, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, as well as creating new value chains for the Amazon’s foods and products.”
Silva, who is expected to get a ministerial post in Lula’s government, repeated the president-elect’s commitment to zero deforestation, but emphasised that this would not be enough to mitigate against the worst effects of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“Brazil has always contributed more to climate mitigation than any country, and we want to do more through modern solutions integrated with traditional Indigenous knowledge. But the world needs to do its part to reduce CO2 emissions, because if not, even if we stop deforestation, the Amazon will disappear if the temperature rises.”
Bolsonaro did not attend Cop27, but Lula will give a highly anticipated speech on Wednesday.
Reaction is still coming in to the announcement, earlier today, that the US and China will restart talks on the climate crisis.
The talks had been on hold as part of the general seizing up of relationships between the countries. But the US president, Joe Biden, met with Xi Jinping, the president of China, for several hours today before the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, and agreed to get back around the table.
Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met a day ahead of the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia. Photograph: XINHUA/LI XUEREN/EPA
Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute, said: “The global community is breathing a sigh of relief that President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are restarting joint efforts to tackle climate change. There is simply no time left for geopolitical fault lines to tear the US and China away from the climate negotiation table.
“Of course, coming back to the table is just a precursor for the leadership on climate change that is required from these two super economies. We need exponential progress that can only happen if the world’s top two emitters commit to work together to combat climate change and support decarbonization efforts worldwide.
“We urge the US and China to use the G20 Summit and the UN climate summit in Egypt as platforms to reconfirm their steadfast support for the Glasgow climate pact, including limiting global warming to 1.5C, jointly committing to bolder action to rein in methane emissions, and working to address increasingly severe impacts from climate change.”
In the UK, Just Stop Oil activists have just tweeted out a film of themselves throwing orange paint at a building that they identify as the Silver Fin building in Aberdeen, where Barclays and Shell have offices.
🚨 BREAKING: BARCLAYS BANK AND SHELL HQ DOUSED IN PAINT
Scientist and author Dr Michael E Mann, one of the earliest to sound the alarm on the climate crisis, published the results of two surveys today with Shawn Patterson Jr looking at “public disapproval of disruptive climate change protests”. Run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC), it set out to investigate the impact these actions have on public perceptions of climate breakdown.
The surveys, which were conducted with just over 2,000 respondents, found that 46% of them reported that these tactics decreased their support for efforts to address climate breakdown; 40% of respondents said the tactics had no effect; and 13% said the tactics increased their support.
Indigenous women call out violence against their land and their bodies
Nina Lakhani
Indigenous women from the Amazon have just held a press conference calling out the violence committed against their land and their bodies, as well as the failure of the Cop summit to take their ideas and solutions seriously.
Sonia Guajajara, an activist, environmentalist and politician from Brazil, listens during the panel discussion on Indigenous women from the Amazon. Photograph: Nariman El-Mofty/AP
“In both cases we are talking about consent and violations of our right to decide,” said Helena Gualinga (Kichwa), an Indigenous youth climate leader from Sarayaku, Ecuador. “We are the main custodians of the untouched forests. If women are protected, we will also protect the territories and ecosystems essential to climate mitigation.”
Also from Ecuador, Patricia Gualinga (Kichwa), from the Amazon Women in Defense of the Jungle, warned investors in and extractive industries to stay away. “It will be bad for business. If you come in, we will stop you because we are in a struggle for our lives ... but we come here with ideas and proposals that can contribute to global solutions, you just have to listen and respect the knowledge and include us in the decision making, otherwise this summit will fail.”
Today is water and gender day at Cop27, and women across the world are on the frontline protecting water (and land) from exploitation by extractive industries like monocropping, mines and oil, which guzzle scarce supplies and contaminate groundwater sources. But thinking about water and land protection separately – as government policies and NGO initiatives often do – can create imbalances in complex interdependent ecosystems, said Sônia Bone Guajajara, Indigenous leader from Brazil who was recently elected to the National Congress. “We are the ones protecting biodiversity, so we need Indigenous women in decision making spaces yet here at Cop our participation is still undermined.”
The press conference ended with a rallying cry: “Not one more drop of Indigenous blood. The Amazon is not for sale.”
Megan Darby, the editor of Climate Home, is also getting a little edgy.
She says she has now covered seven Cops and is getting better, she hopes, at filtering out the noise and … “there’s precious little signal out there today”.
this is my 7th Cop and I can't say I've perfected the formula for reporting them but I am getting better at tuning out the noise, and... there's precious little signal out there today #COP27
She points out that “normally technical negotiators hand over to ministers at the weekend to thrash out political issues in the second week. The #Cop27 presidency doesn’t plan to bring ministers into negotiations until Wednesday”.
Expectations for this Cop were low, to be fair. Darby wonders if, as a result, “we could end up with a short cover text that just recalls the Glasgow pact etc”.
that doesn't leave much time to debate the big issues around loss and damage, finance, 1.5C, fossil fuels... we could end up with a short cover text that just "recalls the Glasgow Pact" etc
This week, negotiators are trying to hammer out the draft text to be agreed by the end of the week.
The Paris Agreement in 2015 secured agreement that countries would hold the global temperature average to “well below 2C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above preindustrial levels”.
Cop26 in Glasgow last year put a much stronger emphasis on 1.5C. But Dr Simon Evans of Carbon Brief has just flagged that a number of large economies are now pushing for “a return to Paris language, which centres on ‘well below 2C’.”
This kind of push and pull is the stuff that negotiations are made of. But still, it would be deflating, given the state of the climate emergency, to see anything that looked like going backwards.
Germany became the latest country, at the end of last week, to announce its intention to exit the ECT, the arbitration system which allows energy companies to sue governments. Germany is following in the footsteps of France, Spain and the Netherlands, although the UK is still holding out.
This puts the EU in an awkward position as it discusses how to reform the treaty. Neslen carried out analysis with Transnational Institute and Powershift, and found issues with perceived conflicts of interest and concerns over self-regulation.
So I am signing off the blog shortly and handing over to my colleague Bibi van der Zee, who will keep you thoroughly entertained and informed throughout the afternoon.
Here is what has happened so far today.
As the second week kicked off, the UN climate boss Simon Stiell urged countries to use their remaining time in Egypt to “build the bridge needed” to make progress on 1.5C, adaptation, finance, and loss and damage. The Cop president, Sameh Shoukry, seemed confident that the talks would wrap up on time by Friday, but those on the ground think that is highly unlikely and negotiations are going very badly.
Back in the UK,a former adviser to No 10, who worked under Boris Johnson and left in May this year, has started a campaign to get green growth on the agenda. Sam Richards, who today launches his new campaign, Britain Remade, says “special interests” have blocked green growth initiatives such as onshore wind and he plans to change that.
We launched our best dressed competition as so many people are wearing beautiful clothes from their home countries at Cop. Keep sending them in to Bibi!
Developing countries criticised the G7’s loss and damage strategy. My colleague Nina Lakhani reported that the G7 countries – historically the most responsible for the global greenhouse gases causing extreme weather events and slow-onset climate disasters and who have for years delayed and denied the need for a loss and damage fund – are pushing the Global Shield insurance scheme as an alternative. This has not gone down well with climate justice advocates or developing countries, some of which would be excluded for being too developed.
My colleague Patrick Greenfield brought in a fantastic scoop that the big three tropical rainforest nations – Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – have signed a strategic alliance to coordinate at their conservation summit at G20.
The family of Egyptian British hunger striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah say they have received proof of life: a handwritten letter from prison.
We’ve had a guest post from the international climate and nature minister Lord Goldsmith, and I don’t want to promise something we can’t deliver, but we should be getting one from a mystery A-lister later …
As ever, there is much more to come both today and for the remainder of the conference so stay tuned and thank you for reading the Guardian. We will be blogging every day so check the site – and I’ll be back with you later this week.
UK trade minister makes speech at institute which has played down global heating
My eagle-eyed colleague Peter Walker has pointed out that Kemi Badenoch has chosen Cop27 week as an opportunity to speak at the Cato Institute, a thinktank which has been accused of disputing the science around climate change.
At her first speech as international trade minister, she chose to address this group in Washington as she promotes US-UK trade.
It's interesting that, with Cop27 going on, international trade secretary Kemi Badenoch has chosen to make her main speech on a US trip to the Cato Institute, which spent many years sowing doubt about climate change (even if they have arguably less bad in the last few years)
It’s full of interesting nuggets such as: “The organisation’s 2009 ‘Handbook for Policymakers’ on global warming begins with the suggestions that Congress should ‘pass no legislation restricting emissions of carbon dioxide’ and ‘inform the public about how little climate change would be prevented by proposed legislation’.’”
On its website, the institute says: “Global warming is indeed real, and human activity has been a contributor since 1975. But global warming is also a very complicated and difficult issue that can provoke very unwise policy in response to political pressure.”
Regular Guardian readers may remember this isn’t her first controversy when it comes to net zero – when she stood for Conservative leader and prime minister she did a spectacular double U-turn on net zero after calling it “unilateral economic disarmament”.
Revealed: imprisoned hunger striker's letter to family
Ruth Michaelson
The family of the Egyptian British hunger striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah have received proof that he is still alive, a letter from prison written on Saturday and given to his mother today.
Abd el-Fattah has been on a prolonged hunger strike since April which he escalated to cease drinking water on the day Cop27 began. He told his mother, the activist Laila Soueif, that he began drinking water again on Saturday, six days into his water strike, in a very carefully worded letter.
Here’s a translation:
4pm Saturday 12/11/2022
How are you, Mama?
I’m sure you’re really worried about me. This will be a short letter and the long letter will be the day of the provisions.
From today I’m drinking water again so you can stop worrying until you see me yourself. Vital signs today are OK. I’m measuring regularly and receiving medical attention.
When you come with the provisions bring the MP3 player with you and god willing it will be allowed in.
I will need vitamins because what I have is almost finished, and effervescent salts.
I miss you all and love you all very much
Alaa
The Egyptian public prosecutor and authorities have said that Abd el-Fattah received a “medical intervention”, last week, amid cryptic statements from President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, that he was “committed” to preserving the democracy activist’s health.
Abd el-Fattah’s family have raised concerns that efforts to keep him alive but shielded from public view could change after Cop27 ends, amid rising pressure on the British government to get access to a detained British national.
Abd el-Fattah’s lawyer, Khaled Ali, is currently at Wadi Al Natrun prison where he is being held for a second consecutive day in a bid to get access to his client.
Thanks to Guardian reader Nyshie Perkinson who has sent in a submission for best dressed.
This is Djyba Gomes Jao, from Guinea Bissau
Djyba Gomes Jao Photograph: Nyshie Perkinson/Centre for Biological Diversiity
And our Nina Lakhani, who is on a fashion photography spree today, has sent in another submission. This is the magnificently dressed Ninawa Inu Pereria Nunes Huni Kui from the Indigenous Educational Network of Turtle Island.
Ninawa Inu Pereria Nunes Huni Kui from the Indigenous Educational Network of Turtle Island. Photograph: Nina Lakhani/The Guardian
The big three tropical rainforest nations – Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – have signed a strategic alliance to coordinate at their conservation at G20, the Guardian can reveal.
The agreement, signed by the administration of outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro, who has overseen enormous deforestation of the Amazon, says the three countries will coordinate on UN climate and biodiversity talks related to tropical forests, with a focus on finance, sustainable management and restoration.
Brazil, Indonesia and DRC are home to 52% of the world’s remaining primary tropical forests, which are crucial to avoiding climate catastrophe. The new alliance says that a results-based payments mechanism to reduce deforestation and keep them standing is a priority through UN climate talks.
The incoming president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said he would seek to forge a similar alliance in his campaign, with parallel discussions between his team and counterparts in Indonesia and the DRC understood to be happening.
Lula will attend Cop27 on Wednesday where he is expected to discuss efforts to save the Amazon and other forests around the world.
The Amazon rainforest Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images
An eye-catching protest from Extinction Rebellion in Cape Town, South Africa, for Water Day at Cop. They are pointing out that business as usual from the fossil fuel companies equals death.
Climate activists protest in Cape Town Photograph: Esa Alexander/Reuters
In good news for bloggers everywhere, the Cop presidency is rather optimistically claiming that negotiations will be wrapped up on time.
Reuters reports that Cop president, Sameh Shoukry, says the first parts of texts will be “emerging” tonight, with “very few issues” left by Wednesday evening, with publication of “near final” text Thursday, and a deal done by Friday.
Our reporters on the ground have said this is surprising as negotiations do not appear to be going very well at all.
Experts including Greenpeace’s chief scientist Doug Parr and Business Green’s James Murray responded with some mirth to Shoukry’s timeline.
It's 'oh my sweet summer child' day at COP, I see.
Developing countries criticise loss and damage insurance scheme pushed by G7
Nina Lakhani
Loss and damage is arguably the most important and contentious issue being negotiated at Cop27, with developing and climate vulnerable nations united behind getting an agreement in Egypt to create a separate funding facility (to cover irreversible economic and non-economic costs) that can then be worked out over the next two years. But the G7 countries – historically the most responsible for the global greenhouse gases causing extreme weather events and slow-onset climate disasters and who have for years delayed and denied the need for a loss and damage fund – are pushing the Global Shield insurance scheme as an alternative. This has not gone down well with climate justice advocates or developing countries, some of which would be excluded for being too developed.
Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network, a global network of 1800 civil society groups, criticised the Global Shield as “yet another distraction strategy”.
Why not create something new within the UNFCCC process which is more comprehensive and responds to the needs of developing countries, like the loss and damage facility, rather than investing their energies in an opaque initiative outside this process which is very limiting. It’s because they want to be in control, but this is just another way to delay progress on loss and damage ... Insurance companies went bankrupt after Hurricane Katrina, and there are many other stories from the US and Europe of places that have become uninsurable because of increasing frequency and intensity of climate disasters. Insurance is not the answer, this is a deception.
Teresa Anderson, global lead on climate justice for ActionAid International, described the initiative as a “distraction.” “An initiative that involves northern countries subsidising northern-owned insurance corporations should not be mistaken for loss and damage finance that supports communities on the front lines of the climate crisis.”
The insurance would not cover noneconomic impacts like loss of language and culture or the slow onset impact of sea level rise and melting glaciers, instead focusing on easier to quantify climate shocks like floods, hurricanes and wildfires.
