AFP UK

The COP27 gathering of nearly 200 nations will be dominated by the growing need of virtually blameless poor nations for money to cope with climate change

The COP27 summit kicks off Sunday in Egypt with nearly 200 countries struggling to outpace increasingly dire climate impacts in a world upended by war and economic turmoil.

Just in the last few months, a cascade of climate-addled weather disasters has killed thousands, displaced millions and caused billions in damages: massive flooding in Pakistan and Nigeria, deepening droughts in Africa and the western US, cyclones in the Caribbean, and unprecedented heat waves across three continents.   

“Report after report has painted a clear and bleak picture,” said UN chief Antonio Guterres in the run-up to the 13-day conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

“COP27 must lay the foundations for much faster, bolder climate action now and in this crucial decade, when the global climate fight will be won or lost.”

Concretely, that means slashing greenhouse emissions 45 percent by 2030 to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above late-19th-century levels.

Warming beyond that threshold, scientists warn, could push Earth toward an unlivable hothouse state.

But current trends would see carbon pollution increase 10 percent by the end of the decade and Earth’s surface heat up 2.8C, according to findings unveiled last week.

Promises made under the Paris Agreement would, if kept, only shave off a few tenths of a degree.

“Our planet is on course for reaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible and forever bake in catastrophic temperature rise,” Guterres said recently.

“We need to move from tipping points to turning points for hope.”

– Conspicuous no-show –

For the UN climate forum, that means transitioning from negotiations to implementation. 

It also means a shift from politics to the economy, with government investments in China, the US and the European Union leveraging hundreds of billions of yuan, dollars and euros into trillions.  

The already daunting task of decarbonising the global economy in a few years has been made even harder by a global energy crunch and rapid inflation, along with debt and food crises across much of the developing world.   

“There have been fraught moments before,” said E3G think tank senior analyst Alden Meyer, recalling other wars, the near collapse of the UN-led process in 2009, and Donald Trump yanking the United States out of the Paris Agreement in 2016.

“But this is a perfect storm,” dubbed by some a “polycrisis”, said the 30-year veteran of the climate arena.

After front-line negotiators set COP27 in motion on Sunday, more than 120 world leaders will put in appearances on Monday and Tuesday.

The most conspicuous no-show will be China’s Xi Jinping, whose leadership was renewed last month at a Communist Party Congress.

US President Joe Biden has said he will come, but only after legislative elections on Tuesday that could see either or both houses of Congress fall into the hands of Republicans hostile to international action on climate change.

Cooperation between the United States and China — the world’s two largest economies and carbon polluters — has been crucial to rare breakthroughs in the nearly 30-year saga of UN climate talks, including the 2015 Paris Agreement.

– ‘High expectations’ –

But Sino-US relations have sunk to a 40-year low after a visit to Taiwan by House leader Nancy Pelosi and a US ban on the sale of high-level chip technology to China, leaving the outcome of COP27 in doubt.

A meeting between Xi and Biden at the G20 summit in Bali days before the UN climate meeting ends, if it happens, could be decisive.

One bright spot at COP27 will be the arrival of Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose campaign vowed to protect the Amazon and reverse the extractive policies of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro.

More than any other COP, perhaps, this one will be about money — or how little of it has flowed from countries that got rich burning fossil fuels to mostly blameless poorer nations suffering the worst consequences.

Developing nations have “high expectations” for the creation of a dedicated funding facility to cover loss and damage, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said on Friday.

“The most vulnerable countries are tired, they are frustrated,” Stiell said. “The time to have an open and honest discussion on loss and damage is now.”

The United States and the European Union — fearful of creating an open-ended reparations framework — have dragged their feet and challenged the need for a separate funding stream.

The protest was organised by Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion

Dutch border police on Saturday arrested hundreds of climate activists who clambered over fences and gates at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and occupied an apron for private jets, which they said should be banned.

The protesters ran onto the tarmac at around 1200 GMT before sitting in front of private planes parked on the apron, including a Royal Canadian Air Force C-130 transporter.

It was not clear if any of the jets were set to depart but protesters said they saw at least one pilot leave a plane and walk back to a nearby hangar.

Organised by environmental groups Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion, activists also pushed dozens of bicycles on to the apron.

Shouting slogans like “Down with flying” and “Schiphol environmental polluter”, they cycled around the apron to the cheers of onlookers on the other side of the fence.

“This action today is about Schiphol airport needing to cut its emissions which means we need to fly less,” Greenpeace spokeswoman Faiza Oulahsen said.

“We are starting with those flights we absolutely don’t need like private jets and short flights,” she told AFP.

About three hours later, Dutch border police started arresting activists — some of whom were dragged to waiting buses after passively resisting arrest.

Border police were also seen tackling several activists off their bicycles as they tried to escape their pursuers.

“We take this very seriously,” Dutch border police spokesman Major Robert van Kapel told AFP.

“These people are facing charges relating to being in a place where they should not have been,” he said, adding that prosecutors will now formulate the exact charge.

The activists were taken to various border police offices around the airfield where they were being processed and identified, Van Kapel said.

Van Kapel said no commercial flights were affected by the protest.

Greenpeace later said police were “far too heavy-handed against the activists on bicycles” and that at least one person received a head injury.

The protest comes as the world gears up for the UN climate summit that starts in Egypt on Sunday, and which activists said should also focus on air travel.

“This is a subject they have to talk about,” said Tessel Hofstede, spokeswoman for Extinction Rebellion.

“Planes are some of the biggest polluters on the planet,” she told AFP.

Two climate activists were detained after each glued a hand to a painting in the Madrid museum

Two climate activists on Saturday each glued a hand to the frame of paintings by Spanish master Francisco Goya in Madrid to protest inaction in the face of global warming.

The protest at the famed Prado museum damaged neither painting, but the protesters scrawled “+1,5°C” on the wall between the two artworks and both were detained, police said.

The United Nations warned last week that the world was nowhere near the Paris Agreement target of capping warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Saturday’s stunt in Madrid was the latest increasingly daring action taken by climate activists to grab the headlines, including throwing soup on Vincent van Gogh paintings in London and Rome, and mashed potatoes on a Claude Monet masterpiece.

On Sunday, nearly 200 nations will kick off in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh the latest climate summit tasked with taming the terrifying juggernaut of global warming.

Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion posted a video online showing the two activists each with a hand fixed on a painting before museum security moved in.

The group said the two artworks in question were “The Naked Maja” and “The Clothed Maja”.

The action was to protest rising world temperatures which will “provoke an unstable climate with serious consequences for all the planet”, the group said.

Videos posted by Extinction Rebellion show the two young women pulling glue from their clothes and sticking their hands to the frames before addressing other museum goers.

Some of the crowd shout at the activists before security appears and asks those present to stop filming.

– ‘Desperate cry’ –

Spanish Culture Minister Miquel Iceta denounced the attack, writing on Twitter that it was an “act of vandalism” and that “no cause justifies attacking everyone’s heritage”.

It is the latest in series of protests by climate activists targeting famous artworks in European cities.

On Friday, a group splashed pea soup onto a van Gogh masterpiece in Rome.

“The Sower”, an 1888 painting by the Dutch artist depicting a farmer sowing his land under a dominating sun, was exhibited behind glass and undamaged.

Four activists were arrested, according to news reports.

The climate activists from Last Generation called their protest “a desperate and scientifically grounded cry that cannot be understood as mere vandalism”.

They warned the protest would continue until more attention was paid to climate change.

Other actions have seen cake or mashed potatoes used in recent weeks.

They have targeted masterpieces such as the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre in Paris or “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer at The Hague’s Mauritshuis museum.

In October, the group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup over van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery.

All those paintings were covered by glass and were undamaged.

Two climate activists were detained after each glued a hand to a painting in the Madrid museum

Two climate activists on Saturday each glued a hand to the frames of two paintings by Spanish master Francisco Goya at the Prado museum in Madrid, police said.

The protest did not damage either painting, but the protesters scrawled “+1,5°C” on the wall between the two artworks in reference to the Paris Agreement target of capping warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Both activists were detained, police said.

Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion posted a video online showing the two activists each with a hand fixed on a painting before the museum’s security officials move in.

The group said the two artworks in question were “The Naked Maja” and “The Clothed Maja”.

The action was a protest in the face of rising world temperatures which will “provoke an unstable climate with serious consequences for all the planet”, the group said in a statement in Spanish.

It is the latest in a number of similar protests by climate activists targeting famous artworks in European cities.

On Friday, a group splashed pea soup onto a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece in Rome.

“The Sower”, an 1888 painting by the Dutch artist depicting a farmer sowing his land under a dominating sun, was exhibited behind glass and undamaged.

Four activists were arrested, according to news reports.

The climate activists from Last Generation called their protest “a desperate and scientifically grounded cry that cannot be understood as mere vandalism”.

They warned the protest would continue until more attention was paid to climate change.

Other actions have seen cake or mashed potatoes used in recent weeks.

They have targeted masterpieces such as the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre in Paris or “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer at The Hague’s Mauritshuis museum.

In October, the group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery.

All of those paintings were covered by glass and were undamaged.

Protesters linked to XR demonstrating against Dutch oil company Shell in South Africa in December 2021

Soup on Vincent van Gogh paintings, mashed potatoes on a Monet masterpiece: climate activists are taking increasingly daring action to grab headlines — and it’s working.

For Extinction Rebellion (XR) co-founder Gail Bradbrook, such bold action is needed to draw attention to the “polycrisis” that threatens to tip the world into climate catastrophe and devastating biodiversity loss.

In the latest eye-catching move, activists from the Last Generation group splashed pea soup on Van Gogh’s glass-covered 1888 painting “The Sower” in Rome on Friday. 

While the Extinction Rebellion was not behind the recent art protests, the movement has inspired climate action across the world.

Bradbrook said that when people act together they can make a real difference.

The scientist spoke to AFP ahead of the 27th round of United Nations climate negotiations opening Sunday — branded by Greta Thunberg as “greenwashing” amid concerns that campaigners will be blocked from attending.

The interview has been edited for length and flow. 

– Climate protesters have recently thrown soup over a Van Gogh painting and mashed potato over a Monet. Do shock tactics work? 

In a media-saturated environment that doesn’t want to tell important stories, it’s hard to get attention. So people go and do something frankly quite dangerous and daft like getting on the motorway. That’s agitation, and it does get a story in the mainstream consciousness. Evidence, from, for example, research by Colin Davis at the University of Bristol, suggests people may dismiss the activists involved, but their focus on the issues increases. In other words, it works from an awareness-raising perspective.

The next bit is to really inspire people that change is possible. And the third bit is acting together to make sure that the change happens. We need to rewire our economy and upgrade our democracy.

You can’t leave it to indigenous people dying on the frontlines trying to defend their lands. And you can’t leave it to activists. We all have to participate.

– How much can individuals do?

There’s an honour in doing what you can. We can understand that for so many miles driven in a car, there’s so much carbon emitted, and therefore, so much ice will melt. 

But at the same time, this is systemic and what the system wants you to do is tie yourself up in a knot. It is a very stressful system that we live in. It’s not by accident that BP introduced the idea of carbon footprinting.

The whole system was founded on extraction, exploitation, especially of our family in the Global South. It needs to go.

– Why did you set up Extinction Rebellion?

It was from a sense of determination to see change happen. It was more, “well, what else do you want to do with your life?” 

We chose the name because we are in the sixth mass extinction event. The polycrisis that we’re in, it’s a climate and ecological emergency, a health crisis and inequality crisis and so on. It has many root causes. There’s an elite class of people who we need to rebel against, who are not taking sufficient action, and in some cases, taking us in the wrong direction.

Climate change weather extremes are already happening. Look at Bangladesh and Pakistan. Essentially, what the world is saying is “tough”. It’s disgusting. 

– What do you think motivates action?  

One of the first things that we did with Extinction Rebellion was to move into emergency mode messaging. You tell people the bitter and brutal truth. And then you talk about why it is like that, and therefore what can be done. And then you talk about what that person can do themselves and as part of their group, so there’s a sense of agency. 

It’s a bit like if you had a lump somewhere on your body and you go to the doctor. At the end of the day, the grown-up in you needs to know what the risks are, what the treatment is. 

The good news is, it starts with being a human being, the best side of being a human being, where we feel part of life.

People have done really incredible things in times of war, for example. Human beings are really amazing, they’re really up for acting selflessly, and on behalf of the collective. It is hardwired into us.

  

– And what stops people?

If there is no leadership telling you there’s an issue, and if you get mixed messages, then you don’t act. 

There have been active forces at play to stop us from wanting to do anything. We know that there were large sums of money spent on climate denial. 

After climate denial — not that it is fully done with — what is the next phase to stop us doing anything? It is these delay stories: Technology is going to save us. It’s all for consumers to sort out. Or, what about China? 

They’re all psychological tools to give people a story to say to themselves: “I can let this go because it’s too stressful to face”. 

Protesters linked to XR demonstrating against Dutch oil company Shell in South Africa in December 2021

Soup on Vincent van Gogh paintings, mashed potatoes on a Monet masterpiece: climate activists are taking increasingly daring action to grab headlines — and it’s working. 

In the latest such stunt, activists from the Last Generation group splashed pea soup on Van Gogh’s 1888 painting “The Sower” in Rome on Friday. 

While the Extinction Rebellion (XR) was not behind the recent art attacks, it is known for disruptive street protests and flamboyant costumes. 

The group’s co-founder Gail Bradbrook said such bold action is needed to draw attention to the “polycrisis” that threatens to tip the world into climate catastrophe and devastating biodiversity loss.

Bradbrook said when people act together they can make a real difference. 

The scientist spoke to AFP ahead of the 27th round of United Nations climate negotiations opening Sunday — branded by Greta Thunberg as “greenwashing” amid concerns that campaigners will be blocked from attending.

The interview has been edited for length and flow. 

– Climate protesters have recently thrown soup over a Van Gogh painting and mashed potato over a Monet. Do shock tactics work? 

In a media-saturated environment that doesn’t want to tell important stories, it’s hard to get attention. So people go and do something frankly quite dangerous and daft like getting on the motorway. That’s agitation, and it does get a story in the mainstream consciousness. Evidence, from, for example, research by Colin Davis at the University of Bristol, suggests people may dismiss the activists involved, but their focus on the issues increases. In other words, it works from an awareness-raising perspective.

The next bit is to really inspire people that change is possible. And the third bit is acting together to make sure that the change happens. We need to rewire our economy and upgrade our democracy.

– How much can individuals do?

There’s an honour in doing what you can. We can understand that for so many miles driven in a car, there’s so much carbon emitted, and therefore, so much ice will melt. 

But at the same time, this is systemic and what the system wants you to do is tie yourself up in a knot. It is a very stressful system that we live in. It’s not by accident that BP introduced the idea of carbon footprinting.

The whole system was founded on extraction, exploitation, especially of our family in the Global South. It needs to go.

– Why did you set up Extinction Rebellion?

It was from a sense of determination to see change happen. It was more, “well, what else do you want to do with your life?” 

We chose the name because we are in the sixth mass extinction event. The polycrisis that we’re in, it’s a climate and ecological emergency, a health crisis and inequality crisis and so on. It has many root causes. There’s an elite class of people who we need to rebel against, who are not taking sufficient action, and in some cases, taking us in the wrong direction.

Climate change weather extremes are already happening. Look at Bangladesh and Pakistan. Essentially, what the world is saying is “tough”. It’s disgusting. 

– What do you think motivates action?  

One of the first things that we did with Extinction Rebellion was to move into emergency mode messaging. You tell people the bitter and brutal truth. And then you talk about why it is like that, and therefore what can be done. And then you talk about what that person can do themselves and as part of their group, so there’s a sense of agency. 

It’s a bit like if you had a lump somewhere on your body and you go to the doctor. At the end of the day, the grown-up in you needs to know what the risks are, what the treatment is. 

The good news is, it starts with being a human being, the best side of being a human being, where we feel part of life.

People have done really incredible things in times of war, for example. Human beings are really amazing, they’re really up for acting selflessly, and on behalf of the collective. It is hardwired into us.

  

– And what stops people?

If there is no leadership telling you there’s an issue, and if you get mixed messages, then you don’t act. 

There have been active forces at play to stop us from wanting to do anything. We know that there were large sums of money spent on climate denial. 

After climate denial — not that it is fully done with — what is the next phase to stop us doing anything? It is these delay stories: Technology is going to save us. It’s all for consumers to sort out. Or, what about China? 

They’re all psychological tools to give people a story to say to themselves: “I can let this go because it’s too stressful to face”. 

More than 100 foreign and local tourists were taken hostage on a riverboat in the Peruvian Amazon, and freed 28 hours later

Members of an Indigenous group on Friday freed more than 100 tourists whom they had abducted in the Peruvian Amazon a day earlier to protest what they called government inaction after an oil spill, officials said.

The group of detained tourists — some 27 from the United States, Spain, France, Britain, Switzerland and 80 from Peru itself — included several children.

“They are already returning to their places of origin,” Tourism Minister Roberto Sanchez told reporters in Lima.

Travelling on a river boat, the tourists were kidnapped Thursday by members of the Cuninico community pressing for government intervention following a September 16 spill of 2,500 tons of crude oil into the Cuninico river.

Community leader Watson Trujillo said Thursday the community took the “radical measure” to try to convince the government to send a delegation to assess the environmental damage to a region home to about 2,500 Indigenous people.

On Friday, the office of Peru’s human rights ombudsman said negotiations had led to the Cuninico “accepting our request to release” the tourists.

“They are freeing us all,” Angela Ramirez, a Peruvian cyclist who was among the tourists, later told AFP via WhatsApp.

She added there had been “a lot of anxiety, much fatigue” as the group awaited news on their fate and slowly started running out of water and food during the 28-hour ordeal.

The September spill was caused by a rupture in the Norperuano oil pipeline owned by state-owned Petroperu to transport crude oil from the Amazon region to the ports of Piura, on the coast.

According to Petroperu, the spill was the result of an intentional 21-centimeter cut in the pipeline pipe.

South Africa, one of the world's top 12 largest polluters, generates about 80 percent of its electricity through coal

South Africa needs much more money to green its economy than what rich nations have promised so far, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Friday, ahead of a key global climate summit.

Ramaphosa is due to travel to Egypt in the coming days to attend the COP27 meeting, where funding for Africa’s green transition is likely to be a flashpoint.

Last year, South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised economy, secured $8.5 billion in loans and grants from a group of rich countries. 

But Ramaphosa said the money was not enough, with a just transition investment plan released on Friday suggesting Pretoria will need about 1.5 trillion rand ($83 billion) over the next five years.

His comments come after the World Bank earlier this week said South Africa would need around $500 billion by 2050 to achieve carbon neutrality.

“We need much greater funding than what has been put on the table,” Ramaphosa told an online sitting of the Presidential Climate Commission. 

“And in going to COP27, that’s precisely the message that we will be taking forward.” 

Ramaphosa said South Africa was working with international partners to find additional funding, adding that some already said they are willing to make new proposals. 

The president said he has stressed the need to increase the share of grants to avoid adding to the country’s already heavy debt burden in talks with other leaders. 

“The key challenge for South Africa and our sister countries on the continent is access to new, at scale and predictable funding that does not further exacerbate our debt crises,” he said. 

Key areas in need of investment included the electricity and the green hydrogen sectors, as well as initiatives to ensure a just transition, Ramaphosa said. 

– ‘Hold developed economies accountable’ –

South Africa, one of the world’s top 12 largest polluters, generates about 80 percent of its electricity through coal.

The World Bank on Friday said the country has been granted financing of $497 million to decommission one of its largest coal-fired power plants and convert it to renewable energy.

Leaders of a divided world meet in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh this month tasked with taming the terrifying juggernaut of global warming as they face gale-force geopolitical crosswinds, including the war in Ukraine and economic turmoil.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said Thursday it was time for a “historic pact” between developed and emerging countries, with richer nations providing financial and technical assistance to help poorer ones speed up their renewable energy transitions. 

On Friday, Ramaphosa criticised Western nations, saying some were re-opening old coal-fired plants and tilting back towards fossil fuels in the wake of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, having told the world to move away from such sources. 

Meanwhile, commitments to make $100 billion per year available to help developing countries decarbonise and adapt to climate change have not been fulfilled, Ramaphosa added. 

“We have an obligation to hold developed economies accountable by making sure that they do honour the financial commitments that they undertook,” he said. 

Four activists were arrested, according to news reports

A group of activists on Friday splashed pea soup onto a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece in Rome, in a protest they warned will continue until more attention was paid to climate change.

“The Sower”, an 1888 painting by the Dutch artist depicting a farmer sowing his land under a dominating sun, was exhibited behind glass and undamaged.

Four activists were arrested, according to news reports.

The climate activists from Last Generation called their protest “a desperate and scientifically grounded cry that cannot be understood as mere vandalism”.

“Non-violent direct actions will continue until citizens get answers from their government on the demands to stop gas and coal and to invest in at least 20 GW of renewables,” they said in a statement.

Video images taken from inside a museum gallery crowded with visitors show two young women throwing a liquid substance onto the painting. 

They and a third woman are then seen gluing their hands to the wall as shouting erupts in the room.

“For shame!” someone in the crowd can be heard shouting. 

– ‘Ignoble act’ –

Climate activists have carried out a series of attacks — using soup, cake or mashed potatoes — in Europe in recent weeks. 

They have targeted masterpieces such as the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre in Paris or “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer at The Hague’s Mauritshuis museum.

In October, the group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery.

All of those paintings were covered by glass and were undamaged.

“Everything that we would have the right to see in our present and our future is being obscured by a real and imminent catastrophe, just as this pea puree has covered the work in the fields…” Last Generation said in its statement Friday.

Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano condemned the protest, calling it an “ignoble act that must be strongly condemned”.

“Culture, which is the basis of our identity, should be defended and protected, certainly not used as a megaphone for other forms of protest,” Sangiuliano said in a statement. 

“The Sower” is on show at Rome’s Palazzo Bonaparte, part of an exhibition of 50 paintings by Dutch master Van Gogh on loan from the Kroller Muller Museum in Otterlo in the Netherlands.

The exhibit organisers, Arthemisia, did not respond to a request for more information on the attack. 

The COP27 climate summit follows a cascade of extreme weather events, including massive flooding in Bangladesh

Leaders buffeted by the geopolitical crosswinds or war and economic turmoil meet in Egypt Monday at a climate summit tasked with taming the terrifying juggernaut of global warming.

Expectations are running high in a world justifiably anxious about its climate-addled future as deadly floods, heat waves and storms across the planet track with worst-case climate scenarios.

The November 6-18 gathering of nearly 200 nations in Sharm el-Sheikh will be dominated by the growing need of virtually blameless poor nations for money to cope not just with future impacts, but those already claiming lives and devastating economies.

Without a “historic pact” bridging the North-South divide, “we will be doomed, because we need to reduce emissions, both in the developed countries and emerging economies,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said Thursday.

Last week the UN warned that “there is no credible pathway in place” for capping the rise in global temperatures under the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

While worst-case projections are less dire than a decade ago, current policies would still see Earth’s surface warm a catastrophic 2.8C, and no less than 2.4C even if countries meet all their carbon-cutting pledges under the Paris treaty.

“There have been fraught moments before,” said E3G think tank senior analyst Alden Meyer, recalling other wars, the near collapse of the UN-led process in 2009, and Donald Trump yanking the United States out of the Paris Agreement in 2016.

“But this is a perfect storm,” dubbed by some a “polycrisis”, said the 30-year veteran of the climate arena.

Casting an even longer shadow on negotiations in Egypt than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many experts say, is the further erosion of Sino-US relations, which in the past have anchored breakthroughs in climate diplomacy, including the Paris Agreement.

– ‘Watershed moment’ –

But a Taiwan visit in August by US congressional leader Nancy Pelosi prompted Beijing to shut down bilateral climate channels. Sweeping restrictions imposed last month by the Biden administration on the sale of high-level chip technology to China deepened the rift.

“We are at a watershed moment,” said Li Shuo, a Beijing-based policy analyst with Greenpeace International.

“If the politics are so bad that the world’s two biggest emitters won’t talk to each other, we’re not going to get to 1.5C.”

A bilateral meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping during the G20 summit in Bali days before the talks in Egypt close, should it happen, could move the dial, Li observed.

“That dynamic would play back to Sharm el-Sheikh.”

Biden will arrive in Egypt touting the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which earmarks nearly $400 billion — and potentially twice that amount — to speed the greening of the US economy.

But legislative elections on November 8 could dampen US bragging rights if Republicans hostile to international climate action take either or both houses of Congress. 

A bright spot at COP27 will be the arrival of incoming Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has vowed to aim for zero deforestation in the Amazon, reversing the extractive policies of Jair Bolsonaro, who will step down on January 1.

– Money matters –

COP27 will arguably boil down to a trio of interlocking priorities: emissions, accountability and money.

The creation of a separate pool of capital for “loss and damage” — UN climate lingo for unavoidable and irreversible climate damages — could be a make-or-break issue.

“This discussion has been going on for three decades,” UN climate change chief Simon Stiell told journalists Friday. “The most vulnerable countries are tired, they are frustrated.”

The US and the European Union — fearful of open-ended reparations — have dragged their feet on this issue for years and question the need for a separate financial framework. 

“The success or failure of COP27 will be judged on the basis of whether there is agreement on a financing facility for loss and damage,” Munir Akram, Pakistan’s UN ambassador and chair of the powerful G77+China negotiating bloc of more than 130 developing nations, told AFP.

Rich nations will also be expected to set a timetable for the delivery of $100 billion per year to help developing countries green their economies and build resilience against future climate change. 

The promise is already two years past due and remains $17 billion short, according to the OECD.

Last year’s COP26 in Glasgow prioritised reducing carbon pollution, mostly through sideline agreements orchestrated by host Britain to curb methane emissions, halt deforestation, phase out fossil fuel subsidies and ramp up the transition to renewable energy.

Nations agreed to review their carbon-cutting pledges annually and not just every five years, though only a handful of nations have done so in 2022.

Guterres, meanwhile, will unveil a critical assessment of “net-zero” commitments by companies, investors and local governments to become carbon neutral.

“Our world cannot afford any more greenwashing, fake movers or late movers,” he said last week.