SHARM EL-SHEIK/OSLO (VG/E24): The UN climate summit COP27 was due to conclude on Friday, but many unresolved issues and difficult controversial topics keep the meetings going. – This doesn’t look brilliant, says Bellona manager Frederic Hauge.
The UN Secretary-General returned to the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh on Thursday morning, where the COP27 climate talks are about to conclude. He arrived with a concerned and clear message:
– COP27 is due to conclude in 24 hours – and negotiations remain divided on a number of important points, he said.
He urged drug dealers to act quickly and went on to say:
– The world follows. You have to deliver.
On Friday morning, when there was still no final communiqué, it was confirmed: the summit will be postponed to Saturday.
– Today we will gear up again. Time is not on our side, said Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who chairs the meeting.
Hauge: – I don’t feel like it
Bellona leader Frederic Hauge, who follows the negotiations closely, is not sure if a final declaration will be adopted.
– This doesn’t look very bright. The text proposed to us on Thursday was very confused and showed little progress. If there is to be a final statement, they probably have to continue through at least Sunday, he tells VG on Friday afternoon.
Thursday was a draft to the main resolution presented at the Sharm el-Sheikh conference. In that proposal, among other things, the wording of a phasing out of coal-fired power is repeated – a controversial topic at the final stage of last year’s climate summit in Glasgow.
BACKGROUND: This is pending during the climate negotiations
Climate and Environment Minister Espen Barth Eide expressed immediate disappointment with the draft:
– This is too bad a draft, we all think so in the Western group. We cannot proceed with this. We need to have a new draft that is much clearer and fleshes out plans to stay on the 1.5 degree target, and that is more constructive on this important topic of loss and damage, said Barth Eide according to NRK.
Expect Norway to take the lead
One of the most central and difficult controversial issues that negotiators are also trying to resolve is the so-called “damage and loss”.
The countries most affected by climate change are often not the ones that have contributed to the changes with emissions. Do rich countries have to pay for losses and damages to exposed and poorer countries? If so, who will pay, who will receive the money, and which device will dispense the money?
This discussion has been postponed several times, but countries have agreed that this will be decided this year.
Norway’s Marianne Karlsen leads climate talks: – It is urgent to do something
In Sharm el-Sheikh, E24/VG meets the only delegate of the young Norwegians at the summit, Ane Aurora Skjølberg Serreli.
– The youth organizations present are very happy that Norway has been so clear that the losses and damages funding needs to be resolved and have high expectations that Norway will take the lead in the final stage of the negotiations. They also hope Norway will take the demands of the most vulnerable countries seriously, she says.
He hopes a “loss and damages” settlement can be put in place.
– But what happens in the last few hours is very decisive. Different groups of countries quite disagree on which is the best solution of the proposals on the table, but they can reach a compromise of some kind, he concludes.
