© UNICEF/Ricardo FrancoAlso on Sunday, the agenda items that will be discussed over the next two weeks at COP27 were agreed during the procedural opening. Want to know more? Check out our special events page, where you can find all our coverage of the COP27 climate summit, including stories and videos, explainers, podcasts and our daily newsletter. Echoing Mr. Stiell, he urged leaders to act, despite current geopolitical challenges.
Deliver what has been promised
“Today a new era begins – and we begin to do things differently. Paris gave us the agreement. Katowice and Glasgow gave us the plan. Sharm el-Sheik shifts us to implementation. No one can be a mere passenger on this journey. This is the signal that times have changed,” Mr. Stiell told delegates gathered in the main plenary room of the Tonino Lamborghini International Convention Centre. People protest in Nürnberg, Germany, as part of the Global Climate Strike. “As challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic, and can only defer climate catastrophe, we must find the ability to focus on more than one thing at once”, he urged.
- Demonstrate a transformation shift to implementation by putting negotiations into concrete actions.
- Cement progress on the critical workstreams – mitigation, adaptation, finance and crucially – loss and damage.
- Enhance the delivery of the principles of transparency and accountability throughout the process.
Kiara Worth/ UNFCCC
No backsliding allowed
UNFCCC/Kiara Worth In words that drew an ovation in the plenary room, the UN climate chief underscored that women and girls must be placed at the centre of climate decision-making and action. Mr. Sharma reviewed the achievements made at Glasgow last year, such as finalising the so-called Paris Rulebook – the the guidelines for how that Agreement is delivered – and making stronger finance commitments. Mr. Shoukry added that the 0 billion promised for adaptation by developed countries to developing countries should be delivered, and finance must be also at the centre of discussion.
An inclusive process
He also warned that “zero-sum games will have no winners” and that the implications of the negotiations will affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world suffering the impact of climate change. “Still not 1.5C, but progress,” he said, recognising the scale of the challenge that the world is facing.
Egypt urges implementation
COP27 President Sameh Shoukry called on delegates to scale up ambition and begin implementing the promises already made. “We cannot afford any negligence or shortcomings; we cannot threaten the future of upcoming generations”, he emphasised. © Unsplash/Zbynek Burival UK representative, COP26 President, Alok Sharma, addresses the opening plenary of the latest UN climate change conference, COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Mr. Stiell, dubbing himself an “accountability chief”, stated that 29 countries have now come forward with tightened national climate plans since COP26, five more since the publication of last week’s UNFCCC NDC Synthesis report, but still not a majority. “So here I am now, looking out at 170 countries that are due to be revisiting and strengthening their national pledges this year,” he said.
Loss and damage
“The negotiations [during the next two weeks] will hopefully be fruitful. I urge all of you to listen carefully and commit to implementation and to turn political commitments into agreements and understandings and texts and resolutions that we can all implement,” he underscored. UNFCCC/Kiara Worth “Stick to your commitments. Build on them here in Egypt. I will not be a custodian of back-sliding,” he said. “Because our policies, our businesses, our infrastructure, our actions, be they personal or public, must be aligned with the Paris Agreement and with the [UN Climate] Convention”, he underscored. The UNFCCC convention entered into force on 21 March 1994 to prevent “dangerous” human interference with the climate system. Today, ratified by 198 countries, it has near-universal membership. The Paris Agreement, agreed in 2016, works as an extension of that convention. According to the COP26 President, if all commitments made last year, including the net-zero pledges, were to be implemented, the world would be on a path to 1.7 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century.