With no consensus yet, COP27 extended by a day
The HinduWith countries unable to arrive at a consensus, the 27th edition of the United Nations Conference of Parties in Sharm el-Sheikh, which was scheduled to end on Friday, has been extended by a day. Achieving this, the document said, required “immediate, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions” as well as “accelerated financial support for developing countries from developed countries.” The draft text calls on countries to accelerate clean energy transitions, phase down “unabated” coal use, and phase out “inefficient fuel subsidies.” In 2021, India fought to ensure that the text adopted at the last COP in Glasgow altered ‘phase out’ to ‘phase down’ with regard to the use of coal. At the beginning of the conference earlier this month, the President of COP27, Sameh Shoukry, had said that this COP would be an “implementation COP”, striving to put into action a host of previous commitments, such as getting developed countries to finalise a pathway to deliver on climate finance as well as set up a facility to pay for ‘loss and damage’. “A lot of issues including mitigation work program, the global goal on adaptation, loss and damage and climate finance are being negotiated as they remain contentious,” said Mr. Yadav. The draft documents also expressed “serious concern” that despite all the nationally determined contributions by countries – that lays out steps to curb emissions in the years ahead – net emissions are expected to be only 0.3% below the 2019 levels, which was “not in line” with the need to keeping global temperature rise within 1.5 to 2°C.