How have we progressed since Cop26? A Cop27 round-up

The last two weeks have seen Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt host the 27th annual climate change summit – known as Cop27- where global leaders come together to agree on how to tackle climate change. The number everyone is talking about is ‘1.5C’, the amount of average global heating we must aim to stay below in order to avoid the worst circumstances. This number was agreed upon as a target at Cop26 last year in Glasgow, when 24 countries signed the Glasgow Climate Pact to stay under 1.5 degrees warming. I thought I’d summarise some of the things I’ve been reading lately that discuss our progress since then.

At the start of 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and we saw global fossil fuel prices skyrocket as countries tried to find alternatives to Russia’s gas supplies. If anything, the war in Ukraine has revealed just how heavily we in the West rely on fossil fuels like oil and gas.

Earlier this month, Will de Freitas in The Conversation gave a brilliant overview of how the war in Ukraine has affected global fossil fuel prices in 2022, and how this needs to be addressed at Cop27. A key thing that stood out for me was the point that richer European countries are able to outbid developing ones for natural gas alternatives, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG). This has led to those developing countries inevitably burning cheaper, but much more polluting coal. The author is careful to point out that the war has caused not an energy crisis, but a fossil fuel crisis, and that it should be a wake-up call for the US and Europe to improve their energy security by heavily investing in renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

Meanwhile Dr Simon Evans, Deputy Editor of Carbon Brief, pointed out on twitter that the language of Cop27 is starting to move away from 1.5C targets set in Glasgow, and back towards the more relaxed 2C limit set in the Paris Agreement of 2015.

In fact, many people think the 1.5C target set out in Glasgow is now completely unfeasible. Professor Bill McGuire from UCL recently published this article in The Guardian. He states that in order to stay under 1.5C warming, humanity must reduce its CO2 emissions by almost half in just over 7 years– and under current emissions targets, he says this is just not going to happen. Even the United Nation’s own progress report says there is “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place”. Instead, the emissions targets currently in place would cause just over 2.5C global temperature increase — and that’s if those targets are met in full.

In online commentary around Cop27, the atmosphere does not appear optimistic. The latest reports are that some countries are trying to water down commitments to 1.5C made last year. Of course, final agreements have not yet been made, so we may still see some updated pledges and renewed commitments to staying under 1.5 degrees warming, but personally, I’m not holding my breath.