We’re going to wrap up the blog for today.
What happened at Cop27: day seven
‘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.
Updated
'This could be the Cop where we lose 1.5C' warns Alok Sharma
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.”
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.’”
Updated
