What happened on the third day of Cop27 in Egypt?
After the leaders’ speeches of the first couple of days, most of the negotiations have now moved behind closed doors. The big discussions today were all around finance, and there does appear to have been some movement on this, as Damian Carrington reported, seeing positive momentum potentially starting to build on a pivotal issue, when the UK said it would allow some debt payment deferrals, while Austria and New Zealand put forward funding for loss and damage.
Other developments included:
The family of the jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah demanded proof of life for the third day in a row
A Kulkalgal activist from the Torres Strait Islands said the way the world often treated Indigenous people was an insult and that he was at the conference in Egypt “fighting for our home”
Bill McKibben, a US environmentalist and founder of 350.org, told an audience: “This year we’ve fully understood the link between fossil fuels and fascism. Putin could not have invaded Ukraine without the profits from oil and gas, or cowered the west with threats of turning off the taps.”
The World Bank president, David Malpass, told the Guardian he was not a “climate denier”. The Donald Trump appointee previously said he did not “even know” if he accepted climate science.
Protesters staged rallies inside the central conference area, ignoring Egypt’s attempts to keep displays of dissent out of sight and out of mind.
Almost half of young people in Africa say they have reconsidered having children due to the climate crisis, according to a Unicef poll.
China’s envoy said the US had “closed the door” to climate talks and needed to reopen it. Xie Zhenhua said Beijing and Washington were having “informal talks”. Xie also hinted that China might contribute to a “loss and damage” fund.
John Kerry, the US climate envoy, unveiled a new global carbon credit trading initiative he said would be “critical” in helping developing countries transition to cleaner forms of energy. That received a mixed reaction from environmental groups.
And finally, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, accidentally started reading the wrong speech.
We’re winding down the blog for today – the finance day at Cop27. We’ll be blogging again tomorrow, with my colleague Helena Horton kicking off in the morning.
Updated
Over on the Conversation, they’re discussing whether Australia – which, over the weekend, bid to hold Cop 31 – actually deserves to host the summit.
Wesley Morgan, a research fellow at Griffith University in South-East Queensland, and a senior researcher with the Climate Council, says the new Australian government, which was elected on a platform of climate action will need to show that Australia has shaken off its bad old ways, and has really changed.
Australia can play a supersized role in the global transition to net-zero by exporting the clean energy commodities and critical minerals other countries need to cut emissions.
He takes a look at some of Australia’s less gloriuos actions in the past, such as Prime Minister Tony Abbott refusing to support Pacific calls for a global treaty to limit warming to to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels, and then PM Scott Morrison trying to water down a regional climate declaration in 2019. Australia will have to show real ambition now, he suggests.
By 2026, Australia will need to put in place policies that will drive deeper cuts to emissions, enabling us to strengthen our 2030 target and to set a much more ambitious 2035 target.
Global emissions must fall by 45% by 2030 to have any chance of achieving the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5℃. A wealthy nation like Australia – with vast, untapped, resources for renewable energy – should be aiming to reduce emissions by 75% this decade.
