Essay  3 min COP27: Steps in to climate justice?

The question of “Climate justice” was at the core of the COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.  What were the main wins and what were the major disappointments of COP27? Environmental activist Manar Ramadan gives you insights into what happened at this year’s COP and how we should go on from here.

As an observer following up on the negotiations and mandated events happening this year in both blue and green zones, “Climate justice” was at the core of COP27. This year was exceptional as I got the feeling that finally, the voice of states that are at the verge of climate emergency got at last heard during negotiations on climate crisis and resources distribution.

But let’s start with what are those blue and green zones? Any COP contains 2 zones, the blue and the green zone. The Blue zone is a UN managed space where all the negotiations happen. It gathers 197 parties, diplomates, NGO observers, Media, country exhibitors for climate action projects currently running in each state and panel discussions to share those stories. All Blue zone attendees must be accredited by UNFCCC.

The Green Zone is open for public. Anyone can register and get access. It is managed by the COP’s host country (Ministry of Environment) and it hosts entities that take initiatives to implement green projects. This includes activist organisations, government’s ministries, private sector, civil society organisations and academia.

"If not us, who? And if not now, when?"

The slogan "If not us, who? And if not now, when?" was used in many side events taking place in the blue zone in which they mostly focused on climate justice. Activists from around the world expressed their doubts if “real solutions to the climate crisis would come from a COP dominated by the Global north” as explained by Eric N Juguna, a Kenyan climate activist. This was further reassured by Ayisha Siddiqa, A Pakistani climate activist that mourned the death of least 1700 Pakistani and the displacement of 8 million people as a result of the intense floods that hit the country during the last monsoon. She said: “Since 1992, all climate change meetings have been financed by fossil industries”. That was an accurate assumption as even this COP was funded by 25% fossil based industries including even more oil and gas industry lobbyist than climate emergency states’ representatives.

Climate change talks at COP27 did not only focus on how many Celsius we need to stick to, but more on the number of people who lost their rights and are affected by climate change adverse effects as the most important part of the equation. The effects of climate change is not only robbing the people from their future, it is robbing them already from their current presence.  

Sustainability and business can go hand in hand

Moving around the green zone, more corporates were sharing their sustainability efforts and plans towards greener supply chains and reducing their environmental footprint. Among one of the very interesting examples was “Alpine creations”, a company that newly franchised in Alexandria in cooperation with “Alex apparels”. They work on recycling fabric and sell new products to international brands. “If fast fashion is now part of the economic system and needs more radical change, at least they are not depleting more natural resources, more emissions and they now can reuse their waste materials,” said Rachel Starkey, the sustainability and social responsibility manager of Alpine creations. She explained the initiative they are currently working on in order to solve the problem of “period poverty”. This concept describes the lack of affordable menstrual supplies for females in low-income countries, resulting many reproductive diseases. Alpine group comes with a smart solution of using the waste fabric to make smart reusable pads with minimal cost and distribute them among girls in villages. In Egypt, they are cooperating with the “Egyptian clothing bank” by donating 10 tons of recycled fabrics for this purpose.

Disappointments on Mitigation and phasing out of fossil fuel

In 2015, the Paris agreement stated that the global efforts should focus on limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5C. At this COP, the countries who are the worst polluters turned the negotiation direction towards moving this limit to 2C instead of decreasing their emissions. An ignorant tactic of negotiation that will not surprise us, if at COP28 in 2023 they would discuss raising the limit to 2.5 C rather than having more concrete and firm decisions to criminalize pollution and cutting down fossil fuels, not only phasing them out.

In addition to this, most of the negotiation sessions happened in closed rooms with observers not allowed attending and monitoring if the states’ representatives are pushing for agendas they promised their people or other deals were done under the table. This confirmed our fear as civil society activists regarding the lack of transparency of the whole process. Knowing that the situation of the current Ukrainian war is already pushing European states to cease their plan of phasing out of fossil fuel, this makes us question, if those countries with the most technology, finance and the ones behind this climate crisis since the industrial revolution will not take responsibility of offering a just and immediate solutions, then who will? And who can?

New hopes for loss and damage

Apart from all of the negative factors, a great win that has been long awaited finally happened. Setting up the “loss and damage fund” to help the most impacted states by climate effects was a great victory and a climate justice milestones. To pay compensation to countries that are most vulnerable was a pressing need for the past decades. Those are regions that are the ones least contributing to the climate crisis worldwide, which are mostly formerly colonised and poor and which cannot adapt to floods, storms, heatwaves and droughts.

With this ray of hope, we need also to be conscious while learning from past COPs. In 2015, it was agreed that $100 billion USD annually would be paid by wealthy nations to build resilience and adaptation projects for vulnerable regions that are under the threat of climate change. Not surprisingly, rich countries “failed” to deliver. For this new win that we can see as a great starting point, we still need to ask critical questions like “Who will pay? Who is eligible to receive those funds? When and how much money?” Nevertheless, to be a real win, it depends on execution. Execution will only be efficient with a very clear timeline. Activists and civil society organisations must keep up the pressure on their governments for those questions to get answered – hopefully – in COP28 next year.

What comes after the COP?

The main win of COP27 was the creation of funds for loss and damage for states under climate emergency cases. While no progress could be noted in regards to limiting the 1.5 C global temperature increase, the polluting countries did not even commit to a strategic plan to phase out from fossil fuel. Same applies for the vague plan of creating $100 billion USD funds assigned for adaptation. These points should be adopted at COP28 next year and we need to see not only the polluting states but other large emerging fossil production based economies such as Gulf countries and Singapore contributing and taking a meaningful part in the discussion.

December 2022