By: Linda Yanti Sulistiawati, PhD Senior Research Fellow APCEL, NUS Law, Singapore, and Assoc.Prof. of Law, UGM, Indonesia
As the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) ended last week, many of us are left baffled at the results reached by state parties. Mixed feelings of achievement and confusion, as well as the need to clarify remaining and new issues, are jumbled up together. Some experts considered COP27 to be a mere ‘filler’ COP: since COP26 in Glasgow last year clarified how Article 6 of the Paris Agreement would operate, it was expected that other key technical decisions (e.g., on the global stocktake and the second round of nationally determined contributions) would have to wait until COP28 in 2023.
COP27 reiterated many of the goals that parties agreed on during COP26 and failed to create new targets to phase out or even phase down fossil fuels. The final draft of the COP27 agreement repeated the request made last year for all countries to revisit and strengthen their individual climate pledges – their 2030 nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – and to update their long-term strategies to better align themselves with the 1.5°C temperature goal established since the 2015 Paris Agreement. As we all know, the Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and ideally to 1.5°C.
There are a few other important points we can distill from COP27:
Firstly, the first Loss and Damage (L&D) fund of COP 27 has been established This is by far the most awaited item from COP 27. The Loss and Damage fund functions like an insurance policy, compensating developing countries for the losses and damages that climate change events wreak upon them, especially given that they have contributed significantly less greenhouse gas emissions than developed countries. L&D has been discussed since COP21, and the objective has been to facilitate the efforts of Parties to develop and implement comprehensive risk management strategies (see decision 1/CP.21, paragraph 48). Dialogue at Glasgow last year also highlighted the importance of the L&D fund. COP27’s L&D decision, therefore, is a great step forward to formalizing the operation of the L&D fund, although much needs to be done to work out the details of how it will work.
Secondly, the world’s 1.5°C target is dangerously at risk of being beyond reach. Prior to this COP, only 25 Parties updated their NDCs. A few more had done so during the conference but generally, efforts are inadequate; we are on track to exceed the 1.5°C limits. However, at the G20 Summit in Indonesia this year, which overlapped the duration of COP27, leaders reiterated their commitment to pursue efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C.
Furthermore, at the G20 Summit, the United States, Japan, and partners promised to mobilize USD$20 billion of public and private finance to help Indonesia shut down coal power plants and bring forward the sector's peak emissions date by seven years to 2030. In reality, USD 20 billion is not that big of a number for the Indonesian coal industry. For example, in the first semester of 2021, the Indonesian coal industry earned USD$38 billion. As we can see, USD$20 billion cannot even compare to the usual income earned from coal power. This, therefore, means that the expectation of USD$20 billion being adequate for the phasing out of coal is illusory. It is not all bad news though – coal power plants in Java are set to expire in 2056. As such, if coal emissions peak early and Indonesia is able to find renewable resources to replace coal, that fund could be used for research and development, and building infrastructure to bridge the transition.
Thirdly, COP27 demonstrates the importance of climate dialogue. Many parties were inflamed when a draft negotiation agreement that failed to include their prioritized issues had been released. Nonetheless, they persevered and negotiated until a satisfactory compromise was reached. Focusing on negotiations was not easy as a plethora of peripheral issues (relating to the implications of having Egypt as the host country) arose at the same time, which could have been confusing for the delegates. These issues did, however, highlight the inequalities and climate justice issues at hand.
Both developed and developing countries had very high expectations of COP27. The developing country was hoping for developed countries to fulfill their commitment to provide USD$100 billion of climate funding per year and finalize the design of the L&D fund. Meanwhile, developed country parties were trying not to shoulder too many things that would not be directly beneficial to them. In the end, though not all questions were answered and not all expectations were met, parties were able to finalize a decision and have committed to striving together to do better over the coming years.
As nations, we are striving slowly curb our greenhouse gases; but the question is, with our environment deteriorating this quickly, would the earth’s calamities wait for us to get our act together? A greater sense of urgency to act and implement change is needed, otherwise, we remain as António Guterres, (Secretary-General of the United Nations) said: on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.
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