COP27: UN agency calls for collective effort against climate change

The 2022 Conference of Parties on Climate Change, popularly known as COP 27, has begun on Sunday in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, with a call on everyone to work toward averting further climate crisis.

The UN Climate Change executive secretary, Simon Stiell, said COP27 has set out a new direction for a new era of implementation, where outcomes from the formal and informal processes truly begin to come together to drive greater climate progress.

“Everybody, every single day, everywhere in the world, needs to do everything they possibly can to avert the climate crisis,” he said.

Stiell urged governments to focus on three critical areas at COP27.

The first area, he said was a transformational shift to implementation of the Paris Agreement and putting negotiations into concrete actions.

“The second is cementing progress on the critical work streams of mitigation, adaptation, finance and loss and damage, while stepping up finance notably to tackle the impacts of climate change.

“The third is enhancing the delivery of the principles of transparency and accountability throughout the UN Climate Change process,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary.

The summit is coming up weeks after more than 600 lives were killed and millions of people rendered homeless in Nigeria due to flooding, which many experts blamed on the effects of climate change.

Human needs

The Egyptian COP27 Presidency has set out an ambitious vision for the conference, the one that will put human needs at the heart of global efforts to address climate change.

Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the presidency intended to focus the world’s attention on key elements that address some of the most fundamental needs of people everywhere, including water security, food security, health and energy security.

Shoukry, who is also the COP27 President, said: “We are gathering this year at a time when global climate action is at a watershed moment.

“Multilateralism is being challenged by geopolitics, spiraling prices, and growing financial crises.

“While several countries battered by the pandemic have barely recovered, and severe and depleting climate change-induced disasters are becoming more frequent.

“The COP27 creates a unique opportunity in 2022 for the world to unite, to make multilateralism work by restoring trust and coming together at the highest levels to increase our ambition and action in fighting climate change.

“COP27 must be remembered as the ‘Implementation COP’ – the one where we restore the grand bargain that is at the centre of the Paris Agreement”.

No fewer than 50,000 delegates have so far registered for the annual global climate summit.

The annual event, which is holding on the African continent for a second time, after the 2001 in Marrakech, Morrocco, will end on November 18.