What happened today at Cop27
I’m signing off the blog now, after a day marked by stalling negotiations.
It looks very much like the conference may overrun, as the draft text was perhaps the most bloated and confused we have ever seen at a Cop and even Shoukry admitted that things were not in a great place.
The president of Cop27, Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry, said he was very worried about the slow progress of the negotiations and issued a stern message to country delegates. “While some of the discussions [have been] constructive and positive, others did not reflect the need to move collectively to address the gravity and urgency of the climate crisis,” he declared.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, was of a similar opinion. Fresh from the G20 summit in Bali, he warned that time was running out, both for the talks in Sharm el-Sheikh and for the planet. “The climate clock is ticking, and trust keeps eroding,” he said. His verdict on Thursday evening was grim: “There is clearly a breakdown in trust north and south, and between developed and emerging economies.” But he urged countries to keep trying for common ground. “This is no time for finger-pointing. The blame game is a recipe for mutually assured destruction.”
Brazil’s incoming president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, met Indigenous leaders and said what many have been thinking at Cop – that those most impacted by the climate emergency are not represented at these negotiations. He said that he was unable to represent all views in the room of Indigenous leaders. He talked about G20 meetings and his feeling that nothing was said about the issues of civil society during them. “Poor people don’t exist on the agenda, do not exist on their agenda … Indigenous communities, black communities … trade unions,” he said.
Ellie Goulding wrote a dispatch for us – not every day you get a pop star on the Cop27 blog! She demanded that fossil fuel lobbyists be banned from Cops, accusing them of “hijacking” proceedings.
Developing countries demanded that an agreement is reached in Egypt to set up a funding mechanism to pay them for loss and damage. Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s climate change minister, representing the G77, said negotiations were at a “pivotal moment”. Rehman said common ground must be found and a political decision taken this week. “We are saying give us a political message that we are all willing to take this forward as a community of nations,” she said. But she said a walkout by countries most vulnerable to climate change impacts was premature. “We’re now in the weeds of negotiations. I don’t walk out of negotiations. I try to work around them.”
The big news was that the Cop cover text draft was published, though it is likely to change significantly in the coming days. Many were disappointed with the bulky and confusing document, which was labelled by some as “more of a shopping list than a draft text”. The UK’s Alok Sharma, the EU’s Frans Timmermans and Canada’s Steven Guilbeault went to see the Cop27 president, Sameh Shoukry, saying there were too many gaps in it.
Thank you so much for following along. We will be covering Cop right to the bitter end – whenever that will be! Stay tuned and keep checking the Guardian for the latest climate stories and the ins and outs of negotiations. Have a lovely evening.
Updated
The British-Egyptian hunger striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah is in a bad way, according to his family, who have just released a statement on Twitter.
They say he is “exhausted, weak, vulnerable and very very thin”.
They claim he has faced intimidating treatment in prison. Read more below.
🧵This is the full text of Alaa's family's statement following their visit to see him today at Wadi Al Natrun Prison, 17th November 2022.
— Free Alaa (@FreedomForAlaa) November 17, 2022
Trigger Warning for distressing content. #FreeAlaa #FreeThemAll #COP27 pic.twitter.com/wMjVnjp7RV
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