The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) builds on the conclusions of COP26 to produce action on a variety of issues crucial to addressing the climate emergency. These issues range from urgently reducing greenhouse gas emissions, developing resilience, and adapting to the unavoidable impacts of climate change, to delivering on the commitments to finance climate action in developing countries. Heads of state, ministers, and negotiators will be attending the largest annual gathering on climate action, which is taking place in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh from November 6th to 18th. They will also be joined by CEOs, mayors, and representatives of civil society and the private sector.
COP27 is looking for renewed international cooperation to implement the historic Paris Agreement for people and the environment in the face of a worsening energy crisis, record greenhouse gas concentrations, and an increase in extreme weather occurrences. A year marked by disastrous floods, unheard-of heat waves, terrible droughts, and powerful storms, which are all clear indicators of the worsening climate emergency, will be discussed at the COP27 conference. As a result of serious geopolitical tensions and conflicts, millions of people around the world are currently dealing with the effects of the concomitant energy, food, water, and living cost crisis. In such an unfavorable environment, some nations have started to stall or reverse their climate policy and increased their reliance on fossil fuels.
The UN Executive Secretary for Climate Change urged states to concentrate on three crucial topics at COP27 during his opening remarks. The first one is a fundamental shift towards putting the Paris Agreement into practice and turning conversations into actual measures. The second one involves solidifying gains in the crucial workstreams of mitigation, adaptation, finance, and loss and damage while boosting funding, particularly to address the effects of climate change. The third one is improving how the UN Climate Change process applies the principles of accountability and openness.
COP27 will host a significant number of ministerial meetings and other occasions related to ongoing climate change initiatives. A first ministerial roundtable will be held on pre-2030 ambitions and ongoing discussions on the global stocktake, which allows governments and stakeholders to assess whether they are making progress towards achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. From the 9th to the 17th of November, the COP27 Presidency will host a number of events organized around specific themes that will highlight workable solutions to the climate change issue and discuss ways to quickly scale their implementation in important industries with the participation of all stakeholders.
To achieve net-zero emissions, improved resilience for the most vulnerable populations, and financial flow alignment with these objectives, the COP27 meetings and roundtables will center around the overall objective of turning climate pledges into climate action.
Watch out for our next news pieces coming up in the next few days in the Circular Economy in COP27 Series, where we will dive deeper into the discussions on circular economy during COP27.