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NASA's Artemis 1 Moon rocket is rolled out to Launch Pad Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Florida

NASA’s Artemis 1 mission, scheduled to take off on Wednesday, is a 25-and-a-half day voyage beyond the far side of the Moon and back.

The meticulously choreographed uncrewed flight should yield spectacular images as well as valuable scientific data.

– Blastoff –

The giant Space Launch System rocket will make its maiden flight from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Its four RS-25 engines, with two white boosters on either side, will produce 8.8 million pounds (39 meganewtons) of thrust — 15 percent more than the Apollo program’s Saturn V rocket.

After two minutes, the thrusters will fall back into the Atlantic Ocean. 

After eight minutes, the core stage, orange in color, will fall away in turn, leaving the Orion crew capsule attached to the interim cryogenic propulsion stage.

This stage will circle the Earth once, put Orion on course for the Moon, and drop away around 90 minutes after takeoff.

– Trajectory –

All that remains is Orion, which will carry astronauts in the future and is powered by a service module built by the European Space Agency. 

It will take several days to reach the Moon, flying around 60 miles (100 kilometers) from it at its closest approach.

“It’s going to be spectacular. We’ll be holding our breath,” said mission flight director Rick LaBrode. 

The capsule will fire its engines to get to a distant retrograde orbit (DRO) 40,000 miles beyond the Moon, a distance record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans.

“Distant” relates to high altitude, while “retrograde” refers to the fact Orion will go around the Moon in the opposite direction to the Moon’s orbit around the Earth. 

DRO is a stable orbit because objects are balanced between the gravitational pulls of two large masses.

After passing by the Moon to take advantage of its gravitational assistance, Orion will begin the return journey.

– Journey home –

The mission’s primary objective is to test the capsule’s heat shield, the largest ever built, 16 feet (five meters) in diameter.

On its return through the Earth’s atmosphere, it will have to withstand a speed of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).

Slowed by a series of parachutes until it is traveling at less than 20 miles per hour, Orion will splash down off the coast of San Diego in the Pacific.

Divers will attach cables to tow it in a few hours to a US Navy ship.

– The crew  –

The capsule will carry a mannequin called Moonikin Campos, named after a legendary NASA engineer who saved Apollo 13, in the commander’s seat, wearing the agency’s brand new uniform.

Campos will be equipped with sensors to record acceleration and vibrations, and will also be accompanied by two other dummies: Helga and Zohar, who are made of materials designed to mimic bones and organs.

One will wear a radiation vest while the other won’t, to test the impacts of the radiation in deep space.

– What will we see? –

Several on-board cameras will make it possible to follow the entire journey from multiple angles, including from the point of view of a passenger in the capsule.

Cameras at the end of the solar panels will take selfies of the craft with the Moon and Earth in the background.

– CubeSats –

Life will imitate art with a technology demonstration called Callisto, inspired by the Starship Enterprise’s talking computer.

It is an improved version of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, which will be requested from the control center to adjust the light in the capsule, or to read flight data.

The idea is to make life easier for astronauts in the future.

In addition, a payload of 10 CubeSats, shoebox-sized microsatellites, will be deployed by the rocket’s upper stage.

They have numerous goals: studying an asteroid, examining the effect of radiation on living organisms, searching for water on the Moon.

These projects, carried out independently by international companies or researchers, take advantage of the rare opportunity of a launch into deep space.

The United States is returning to the Moon 60 years after JFK's famous speech

On September 12, 1962, then US president John F. Kennedy informed the public of his plan to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.

It was the height of the Cold War and America needed a big victory to demonstrate its space superiority after the Soviet Union had launched the first satellite and put the first man in orbit.

“We choose to go to the Moon,” Kennedy told 40,000 people at Rice University, “because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

Sixty years on, the United States is about to launch the first mission of its return program to the Moon, Artemis. But why repeat what has already been done?

Criticism has risen in recent years, for example from Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, and the Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin, who have long advocated for America to go directly to Mars.

But NASA argues re-conquering the Moon is a must before a trip to the Red Planet. Here’s why.

– Long space missions –

NASA wants to develop a sustainable human presence on the Moon, with missions lasting several weeks –- compared to just a few days for Apollo. 

The goal: to better understand how to prepare for a multi-year round trip to Mars. 

In deep space, radiation is much more intense and poses a real threat to health. 

Low Earth Orbit, where the International Space Station (ISS) operates, is partly shielded from radiation by the Earth’s magnetic field, which isn’t the case on the Moon. 

From the first Artemis mission, many experiments are planned to study the impact of this radiation on living organisms, and to assess the effectiveness of an anti-radiation vest. 

What’s more, while the ISS can often be resupplied, trips to the Moon — a thousand times further — are much more complex. 

To avoid having to take everything with them, and to save costs, NASA wants to learn how to use the resources present on the surface. 

In particular, water in the form of ice, which has been confirmed to exist on the lunar south pole, could be transformed into rocket fuel by cracking it into its separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

– Testing new gear –

NASA also wants to test on the Moon the technologies that will continue to evolve for a mission to Mars. First, new spacesuits for spacewalks.

Their design was entrusted to the company Axiom Space for the first crewed mission to the Moon, in 2025 at the earliest. 

Other needs: vehicles  — both pressurized and unpressurized — so that the astronauts can move around, as well as a fixed habitat at the lunar base camp.

Finally, for sustainable access to an energy source, NASA is working on the development of portable nuclear fission systems. 

Solving any problems that arise will be much easier on the Moon, only a few days away, than on Mars, which can only be reached after at least several months of voyage.

– Establishing a waypoint –

A major pillar of the Artemis program is the construction of a space station in orbit around the Moon, called Gateway, which will serve as a relay before the trip to Mars. 

All the necessary equipment can be sent there in “multiple launches,” before finally being joined by the crew to set off on the long voyage, Sean Fuller, responsible for the Gateway program, told AFP.

“Kind of like you’re stopping at your gas station to make sure you get all the stuff, and then you’re off on your way.”

– Maintaining leadership over China –

Apart from Mars, another reason put forward by the Americans for settling on the Moon is to do so before the Chinese, who plan to send taikonauts by the year 2030.

China is the United States’ main competition today as the once proud Russian space program has withered.

“We don’t want China suddenly getting there and saying, “This is our exclusive territory,'” NASA boss Bill Nelson said in a recent interview.

– For the sake of science –

While the Apollo missions brought back to Earth nearly 400 kilograms of lunar rock, new samples will make it possible to further deepen our knowledge of this celestial object and its formation. 

“The samples that we collected during the Apollo missions changed the way we view our solar system,” astronaut Jessica Meir told AFP. “I think we can expect that from the Artemis program as well.”

She expects further scientific and technological breakthroughs too, just like during the Apollo era.

All three nations have vast tropical rainforests threatened by logging and agriculture

The world’s biggest rainforest nations Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday formally launched a climate partnership to work together on conservation.

All three nations have vast tropical rainforests threatened by logging and agriculture. 

“Representatives from Indonesia, Brazil and DRC… announced a tropical forest cooperation and climate action in the Egyptian COP27 (climate summit) side event on November 7, and agreed to sign a Joint Statement today,” Indonesia’s coordinating minister of maritime and investment affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said in a statement.

“We do need cooperation with others to achieve common goals. Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much,” he said on the eve of the G20 summit.

The agreement calls for all three to be compensated by the international community for reducing deforestation, focusing on joint issues such as access to climate finance and the price of a tonne of carbon in the carbon-credit market.

The Indonesian statement said the countries “have a common interest in collaborating to increase the value of their tropical forests, and to ensure that these tropical forests continue to benefit the climate and people.”

Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to pledge a reversal of the environmental policies of his right-wing predecessor Jair Bolsonaro to protect the Amazon rainforest.

His trip to the COP27 talks in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh — which he will address on Wednesday — will be his first international visit since beating Bolsonaro in an election run-off last month.

The 77-year-old promised on the campaign trail to work towards zero deforestation. Brazil will be represented at the G20 summit on Tuesday and Wednesday by Foreign Minister Carlos Franca.

The DRC, which is home to 60 percent of the vast Congo Basin rainforest, has faced criticism for launching an auction in July for oil and gas blocks, some of which are in sensitive areas. 

The impoverished central African nation maintains that developing its fossil resources is an economic imperative.

But the country’s Environment Minister Eve Bazaida Mazudi said the three nations can offer solutions to climate change together.

“The world is currently getting warmer and warmer, so humanity needs rainforests to bind CO2,” she said, according to the Indonesian statement.

The Artemis 1 mission, a test flight without astronauts on board, represents the first step in the agency's plan to build a lasting presence on the Moon, taking lessons from there to prepare for a future voyage to Mars

After two failed attempts this summer, NASA was busy Monday completing final preparations for the launch of its new mega Moon rocket, now scheduled for early Wednesday from Florida. 

The Artemis 1 mission, a test flight without astronauts, represents the first step in the US space agency’s plan to build a lasting presence on the Moon, and taking lessons from there to prepare for a future voyage to Mars.

Named after the sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, the new space program comes 50 years after humans last set foot on lunar soil.

The first launch of the Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever designed by NASA, is set for Wednesday at 1:04 am local time (0604 GMT), with a possible launch window of two hours.

Countdown has already begun at the storied Kennedy Space Center, where the orange and white behemoth awaits its maiden flight.

The takeoff is scheduled less than a week after the passage of Hurricane Nicole, which the rocket endured outside on its launch pad.

For now, officials are evaluating the risk associated with hurricane damage to a thin strip of caulk-like material called RTV, which encircles the Orion crew capsule atop the rocket, and makes it more aerodynamic.

Teams are looking at whether the RTV could shake loose during launch and pose problems.

Two fallback dates are possible if needed, on November 19 and 25.

But Mike Sarafin, in charge of the Artemis 1 mission, was optimistic Sunday evening. “I feel good headed into this attempt,” he said.

– Far side of Moon –

The weather promises to be mild, with a 90 percent chance of favorable conditions during the launch window.

At the end of September, the rocket had to be wheeled back to its assembly building to be sheltered from another hurricane, Ian, postponing the mission by several weeks.

Before these weather setbacks, two launch attempts had to be canceled for technical reasons.

The first failure was related to a faulty sensor, and the second to a fuel leak when filling the rocket’s tanks. It runs on ultra-cold, ultra-volatile liquid oxygen and hydrogen.

NASA has since replaced a seal and modified its procedures to avoid thermal shock as much as possible, and succeeded in a tank filling test in late September. 

These filling operations are now due to begin Tuesday afternoon, under the orders of Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s first female launch director.

About 100,000 people are expected on the coast to watch the launch, with the rocket promising to light up the night sky.

The Orion capsule will be lifted by two boosters and four powerful engines under the core stage, which will detach after only a few minutes.

After a final push from the upper stage, the capsule will be well on its way, taking several days to reach its destination.

Rather than landing on the Moon, it will assume a distant orbit, venturing 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) beyond Earth’s natural satellite — further than any other habitable spacecraft so far.

Finally, Orion will embark on the return leg of its journey. When passing through the atmosphere, the capsule’s heat shield will need to withstand a temperature half as hot as the Sun’s surface.

If takeoff happens Wednesday, the mission would last 25 and a half days in all, with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on December 11.

NASA is banking on a successful mission after developing the SLS rocket for more than a decade. It will have invested more than $90 billion in its new lunar program by the end of 2025, according to a public audit.

Artemis 2 will be almost a replay of the first mission, albeit with astronauts, in 2024. 

Boots on the ground should happen during Artemis 3, no sooner than 2025, with the crew set to include the first woman and first person of color on the Moon.

NASA then wants to launch around one mission per year and build a lunar space station called Gateway. There, humanity must learn to live in deep space and develop the technologies necessary for a round trip to Mars, perhaps in the late 2030s.

People walking down Takeshita Street in the Harajuku area of Tokyo, a popular shopping district

The world’s fashion giants have pledged to trim their carbon footprint but that goal remains elusive at a time “fast fashion” is all the rage — a topic in the spotlight at the UN climate summit.  

With a chance to strut their climate commitments at COP27 talks, clothing brands and manufacturers discussed global warming — but some admitted that their pledge to halve emissions by 2030 and reach net-zero by mid-century may be a stretch. 

“Are we there yet? Of course not. Are we on track? I would say … maybe,” Stefan Seidel, senior head of sustainability at Puma, told a panel at the COP27 in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Greenpeace and other groups have urged the sector — already under fire for often exploitative labour practices — to slow down or end the wasteful trend of mass-producing low-cost clothes that are quickly thrown away.

Fast fashion, they charge, uses up massive amounts of water, produces hazardous chemicals and clogs up landfills in poor countries with textile waste, while also generating greenhouse gases in production, transport and disposal.

The fashion sector was responsible for four percent of global emissions in 2018 — about the same as Britain, France and Germany combined — according to the McKinsey consultancy firm.

Some 30 firms — from retail giants H&M and Zara owner Inditex to sports apparel rivals Adidas and Nike — signed up to the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action at the COP24 summit in Poland in 2018.

At the time they pledged to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2030 and to be net-zero emitters by mid-century.

A year ago they set the new, more ambitious goal of slashing their CO2 emissions by half by the end of the decade, with more than 100 companies now signatories to the pledge.

But meeting the target is a major challenge for an industry with long and complex supply chains that span the globe, industry insiders admit.

– ‘Difficult and costly’ –

Industry figures at COP27 barely mentioned the “fast fashion” business model, which critics say is at the heart of the problem, focussing instead on ideas around the use of renewable energy in factories and regulation.

But greening the entire supply chain and introducing climate-friendly standards among suppliers of raw materials and factories is a monumental task.

Leyla Ertur, head of sustainability at H&M, said the Swedish firm has more than 800 suppliers.

And Marie-Claire Daveu, sustainability chief at Kering Group, which owns luxury brands Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, said: “Even us, we’re not big enough to change all the supplies chains. That’s why collaboration is key.”

Ali Nouira, an Egyptian manufacturer, told another COP27 panel that certification bodies do not even exist in the region.

“When we manufacture, we need to have all the right certifications and the carbon footprints and all that, and for a small brand coming out from Egypt that is extremely difficult and also costly,” Nouira said.

“We also manufacture for other brands, in Europe and other places,” he said. “And we’re pressured to have the certifications and also to go down with our prices, so they can continue to make the profits they make.”

– ‘Leap of faith’ –

Nicholas Mazzei, head of environmental sustainability at online retailer Zalando, said there had been a culture change in developed countries, with banks offering lower interest rates to companies that commit to a net-zero target.

“If you make that transformation, you may end up paying nothing because the loans are so low the costs are basically free,” Mazzei said.

But suppliers face big costs as sewing clothes in factories requires more energy than that used by retail stores at the end of the supply chain.

“We need, at a far bigger scale, more renewable energy than brands do,” said Catherine Chiu, vice president of corporate quality and sustainability at Kong Kong firm Crystal International Group.

“Even if we install solar panels in all of our 20 plants, that would only represent 17 percent of the energy consumption of the group,” she said.

Delman Lee, vice chair for sustainability at TAL Apparel, another Hong Kong garment manufacturer, said it has been decarbonising its operations for a decade.

But with subsidiaries in countries including Vietnam and Ethiopia, it is complicated to navigate the different regulations, Lee said.

Aiming to become a net-zero business “is a leap of faith commitment,” Lee said. “You commit to something you don’t know how to achieve.”

A first tranche of nations to take part include Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Fiji, Ghana, Pakistan, the Philippines and Senegal

A scheme to give speedy financial support to communities battered by climate disasters was launched Monday by a group of rich and developing nations at the UN COP27 summit in Egypt.

The “Global Shield against Climate Risks” comes as many of the most vulnerable nations are also demanding wider compensation for the “loss and damage” they have already suffered from a heating planet.

The initiative, backed by the G7 and launched with initial funding of more than $200 million, aims to provide “pre-arranged financial support designed to be quickly deployed in times of climate disasters”. 

The Global Shield project “is long overdue”, said Ken Ofori-Atta, Ghana’s finance minister and chair of the V20 group of nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.   

“It has never been a question of who pays for loss and damage, because we are paying for it,” he said in recorded remarks at the summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. 

“Our economies pay for it in lost growth prospects, our enterprises pay for it in business disruption, and our communities pay for it in lives and livelihoods lost.”

He said he hoped the project would help the most vulnerable communities but also aid wider understanding of the challenges emerging economies face as they are being hammered by climate-induced floods, heatwaves or droughts. 

A first group of nations that will benefit from the scheme includes Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Fiji, Ghana, Pakistan, the Philippines and Senegal.

– ‘Need protection now’ –

Nations at the COP27 agreed this year for the first time to include the thorny topic of loss and damage on the formal agenda, after years of reluctance from richer polluters wary of creating open-ended liability.

Germany said the Global Shield scheme, largely in the form of insurance that pays out immediately after — or even before — a climate disaster, would be part of a broader effort to respond to loss and damage.  

Svenja Schulze, Germany’s minister of economic cooperation and development, stressed that the scheme was not “a tactic” to sidestep calls for a specific loss and damage funding mechanism.

“The Global Shield isn’t the one and only solution for loss and damage, certainly not,” she said, adding that more funding will be needed to cover more countries. 

“Those most affected by climate impacts need practical action now.” 

The Global Shield is designed to provide a range of financial, social and credit protection and insurance for loss of crops, livestock, property and other goods. 

It also promises to support the swift delivery of funds for humanitarian agencies responding to disasters.  

– ‘Life and death’ –

A formal loss and damage funding stream would likely go further, also covering longer-onset climate impacts such as sea level rise and threats to cultural heritage.  

Besides $170 million from Germany, funding includes $20 million from France, $10 million from Ireland, $7 million from Canada and $4.7 million from Denmark.

France later said its total commitment would be $60 million over three years. 

The V20 bloc, made up of 58 developing nations, released research this year that estimated countries had lost some $525 billion to climate impacts since 2000. 

Ninety-eight percent of the nearly 1.5 billion people in V20 countries do not have financial protection, it said.

“We’re talking about people living under the poverty line, they’re not going to be buying insurance,” said Rachel Cleetus, lead economist at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate programme. 

“Insurance can help you up to a point but climate change is now creating conditions in many parts of the world that are beyond the bounds of what’s insurable,” she told AFP, referring to sea level rise, desertification and the mass displacement of populations. 

Teresa Anderson of ActionAid International said the scheme showed that the global community recognised the need to act on loss and damage, but said it was a “distraction” from negotiations on a dedicated funding mechanism for climate damages.   

“Everyone knows that insurance companies, by their very nature, are either reluctant to provide coverage, or reluctant to pay out,” she said. “But when it comes to loss and damage, this is a matter of life and death.”

Participants tour the Sharm el-Sheikh International Convention Centre, in Egypt's Red Sea resort city of the same name, as the second week of COP27 opens

COP27 entered its final week Monday with rich carbon polluters and developing nations at loggerheads over how to speed up and fund reductions in emissions.

The stand-off comes as advanced economies are pressed into acknowledging the need to compensate their developing peers for accelerating climate damage, and as total funding needs appear poised to run into trillions, rather than billions, of dollars.  

Somewhere in the middle, China — accounting for 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, by far the largest share — is feeling pressure from both sides, not only to enhance its carbon cutting goals but to step up as a donor nation, negotiators and analysts say.

At last year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow, nearly 200 countries vowed to “keep alive” the Paris Agreement’s aspirational goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Nearly 1.2C of warming so far has seen a cascade of increasingly severe climate disasters, such as the flooding that left a third of Pakistan under water this summer, claiming at least 1,700 lives and inflicting $30 to $40 billion in damage.

The Glasgow Pact urged nations to ramp up their emissions reduction commitments ahead of this year’s summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, but with little immediate uptake by nations.

This leaves the world on track to hot up by about 2.5C — enough, scientists say, to trigger dangerous climate tipping points. 

– ‘Make our lives easier’ –

Meanwhile, China and India have called the 1.5C goal into question, with Beijing pointing out that the binding target agreed in Paris was “well below” 2C. The 1.5C is a non-binding ambition, but has since been confirmed by science as a far safer global threshold. 

“Egypt doesn’t intend to be the country that hosts a retreat from what was achieved in Glasgow,” US special climate envoy John Kerry said at the weekend, adding that “most countries here have no intention of going backwards”.

At COP27’s midpoint, countries are at an impasse, awaiting the arrival of ministers to cut through political knots above the pay grade of negotiators. 

“All the big political crunch issues are unresolved,” said Alden Meyer, a senior analyst at climate think tank E3G. 

A reality-check report released at COP27 last week showed CO2 emissions from coal, gas and oil are on track to hit record levels in 2022.

To accelerate decarbonisation, many developing nations — including small island states whose very existence is threatened by rising seas — favour a deepened commitment to the 1.5C target. 

Negotiators in Sharm el-Sheikh will look to a bilateral meeting Monday in Bali between China’s Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden, along with the communique from a G20 meeting both will subsequently attend, for signals that could break the deadlock in Egypt.

“Confirming the 1.5C goal in Bali would make our lives easier,” a senior negotiator at the climate talks said. 

– ‘Polluters must pay’ –

When it comes to money, the spotlight in Egypt is on so-called loss and damage, UN-speak for the life, property and cultural heritage lost in natural disasters.

Rich nations fearful of creating an open-ended liability regime agreed only this year to include this thorny topic on the formal agenda. 

Developing nations are calling for the creation of a separate facility, but the US and the European Union — while not precluding such an outcome — have said they favour using existing financial channels.

“This is the highest profile, most political issue at the COP,” said Meyer.

On Monday, G7 countries and nearly 60 nations most vulnerable to climate change formally launched a scheme aimed at providing financial support for communities battered by climate disasters, with around $211 million of initial funding.

Kenneth Ofori-Atta, Ghana’s finance minister and chair of the ‘V20’ group of nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, said the scheme “is long overdue”.

Another track of the talks, meanwhile, has opened on how much money the Global South will get — after current pledges of $100 billion a year expire in 2024 — to help green their economies and prepare for future warming.

Options range from expanding access to IMF and World Bank funds, to a windfall tax on fossil fuel companies, to broadening the base of donor nations to include China, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other nations. 

“China and India are major polluters, and the polluter must pay,” Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said last week, speaking for the AOSIS coalition of small island states.

“I don’t think there are free passes for any country.”

The COP27 climate conference enters its second week with countries still far apart on key issues

COP27 entered its final week Monday with countries that grew rich burning fossil fuels and developing nations reeling from climate impacts at loggerheads over how to speed and fund reductions in carbon pollution.

Somewhere in the middle, China — accounting for 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, by far the largest share — is feeling pressure from both sides, not only to enhance its carbon cutting goals but to step up as a donor nation, negotiators and analysts say.

At last year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow, nearly 200 countries vowed to “keep alive” the Paris Agreement’s aspirational goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Nearly 1.2C of warming so far has seen a cascade of increasingly severe climate disasters, such as the flooding that left a third of Pakistan under water this summer, claiming at least 1,700 lives and inflicting $30 to $40 billion in damage.

The Glasgow Pact urged nations to ramp up their emissions reduction commitments ahead of this year’s critical summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

But with the exception of Australia and Mexico, only a handful of smaller economies heeded the call, leaving the world on track to hot up by about 2.5C — enough, scientists say, to trigger dangerous tipping points in Earth’s climate system. 

At the COP27’s midpoint, little has changed.

“Parties are basically staring each other down, thinking they have done their part and waiting for the other side to move,” said the head of WWF France, Pierre Canet.

– ‘Make our lives easier’ –

As ministers arrive to cut through political knots above the pay grade of front-line negotiators, focus will turn to a crucial “decisions” document that will reveal the consensus reached — or not.

“All the big political crunch issues are unresolved,” said Alden Meyer, a senior analyst at climate think tank E3G. 

To accelerate decarbonisation, many developing nations — including small island states whose very existence is threatened by rising seas — favour a deepened commitment to the 1.5C target, with specific mention of the fossil fuels that drive emissions. 

US special envoy for climate John Kerry on Friday called out countries “whose 2030 goals are not yet aligned with the Paris temperature goal,” a thinly veiled allusion to China.    

A reality-check report released at COP27 last week showed CO2 emissions — which must decline nearly 50 percent by 2030 to keep the 1.5C target in play — from coal, gas and oil are on track to hit record levels in 2022.

But China and India have objected to such efforts, with Beijing pointing out that the binding target agreed in Paris was “well below” 2C, not 1.5C.

Negotiators in Sharm el-Sheikh will look to a bilateral meeting Monday in Bali between China’s Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden, along with the communique from a G20 meeting both will subsequently attend, for signals that could break the deadlock in Egypt.

“Confirming the 1.5C goal in Bali would make our lives easier,” a senior negotiator at the climate talks said. 

– ‘Polluters must pay’ –

When it comes to money, the spotlight in Egypt is on so-called loss and damage, UN-speak for unavoidable losses — of life, property and cultural heritage — due to climate impacts that have already happened.

Rich nations fearful of creating an open-ended liability regime agreed this year for the first time to include this thorny topic on the formal agenda. 

Developing nations are calling for the creation of a separate facility, but the US and the European Union — while not precluding such an outcome — have said they favour using existing financial channels.

“This is the highest profile, most political issue at the COP” said Meyer.

Another track of the talks, meanwhile, has opened on how much money the Global South will get — after current pledges of $100 billion a year expire in 2024 — to help green their economies and prepare for future warming.

As it becomes clear that financial needs will be measured in trillions of dollars rather than billions, other options — some of them in parallel to the UN process — have emerged.

These range from expanding access to IMF and World Bank funds, to broadening the base of donor nations to include China, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other nations. 

“China and India are major polluters, and the polluter must pay,” Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said last week during the COP27 summit, speaking for the AOSIS coalition of small island states.

“I don’t think there are free passes for any country.”

Brazilian president-elect Lula is expected to give a speech at the UN climate summit in Egypt

Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected this week at the UN climate summit in Egypt to pledge to reverse the environmental policies of his right-wing predecessor and protect the Amazon rainforest.

Lula’s trip Monday to the COP27 talks in Sharm el-Sheikh will be his first international visit since beating Brazil’s far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the October 30 runoff election.

The 77-year-old, who promised on the campaign trail to work towards zero deforestation, will address the conference on Wednesday, his press team said.

In a nod to Lula’s victory speech, in which he pledged to end Brazil’s “pariah” status, his team said he had wanted to hold “more talks with world leaders in a single day than Bolsonaro had in four years.”

But according to Brazilian newspaper O Globo, the incoming president has not been able to line up most of the dozen or so high-level meetings he had requested.

Lula might, however, meet with US climate czar John Kerry and announce that Brazil is willing to host the COP30 summit in 2025, the newspaper said.

Latin America’s most populous country grew more isolated under Bolsonaro, analysts say, in part due to his permissive policies towards deforestation and exploitation of the Amazon, the preservation of which is seen as critical to fighting global warming.

If Lula — who served as president from 2003 to 2010 — manages to curb deforestation and illegal mining, he would make a major contribution to the global fight against climate change, said Francisco Eliseu Aquino, a climate expert at Rio Grande do Sul University.

“Lula knows the COP talks well. He was always proactive in international discussions and kept a high international profile” during his first two terms, said Aquino.

– Deeper cooperation – 

To meet the environmental challenge, the former steelworker who begins his third term on January 1, hopes to get help from the international community.

Lula’s former and likely future environment minister, Marina Silva, has already been holding meetings at the UN summit, and has said that Brazil will lead “by example” on combatting climate change.

She said Lula plans to fight the destruction of the Amazon and pursue a reforestation target of 12 million hectares, with or without international aid.

But she welcomed announcements from Norway and Germany that they would resume financial support to the Amazon Fund. Both countries withdrew aid in 2019 shortly after Bolsonaro came to power.

“With Lula’s weight and influence, and due to worries all over the world for the Amazon, it is possible that some bilateral agreements might be reached,” said Daniela Costa, a spokesperson for Greenpeace Brazil.

Silva said the US government was “prepared to deepen cooperation” with Brazil after she met with Kerry last week.

She also said in an interview with Brazilian broadcaster Globonews that she had invited the United States to contribute to the Amazon Fund.

– ‘Much more daring’ –

Deforestation was at a high level at the start of Lula’s first term in 2003, before falling sharply under Silva as minister. But she resigned in 2008, saying was not getting the money she needed to take her efforts even further.

Aquino said the policies of Lula’s next government need to be “much more daring” than during his first two terms in power.

At COP27, Lula could announce the creation of a high-level body to coordinate the work of different ministries active in climate work.

Since Bolsonaro — a staunch ally of agribusiness — took office in January 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased by 75 percent compared to the previous decade.

The fight against global warming is not just about protecting precious areas like the Amazon, he said. “It also involves the economy, health and agriculture.”

“We welcome the arrival of Lula with much hope,” said Dinaman Tuxa, coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil.