SHARM EL-SHEIKH (Egypt): Countries participating in the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, have reached an agreement to set up a fund to help developing nations deal with loss and damage caused by global warming.

The 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP27, was closed on Sunday, following the adoption of the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan document.

With the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic in mind, the outcome document stressed that the “increasingly complex and challenging global geopolitical situation…should not be used as a pretext for backtracking, backsliding or de-prioritizing climate action.”

COP27, which kicked off on Nov. 6, was initially scheduled to end on Friday. It has been extended, however, due to tangled negotiations on climate change-linked loss and damage, which became an agenda item for the first time.

Advanced countries were initially negative about establishing an aid fund over such loss and damage, but eventually made compromise to advance the talks.

The new fund agreed on at COP27 is supposed to be aimed at supporting developing nations that are especially susceptible to climate change-linked damage, such as from heavy rain and droughts.

Details of the aid fund, including a funding method, will be discussed at next year’s COP28.

On work plans for stepping up efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the COP27 participants only agreed to hold at least two meetings every year until 2026 to check progress on such efforts.

Emerging economies with large emissions, including China, opposed such work plans, claiming that they could lead to a higher emission reduction target.

As in last year’s COP26, the outcome document covered the nonbinding target of limiting the post-industrial rise in the average temperature around the world to 1.5 degrees Celsius and the concept of reducing in stages coal-fired power plants with no measures to curb emissions.

The COP27 document clarified the member countries’ commitment to the 2015 Paris Agreement, even as energy prices are soaring amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The document also called on the member countries to accelerate their shift to renewable energy and annually make related investments totaling 4 trillion dollars until 2030.

JIJI Press