This year’s UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was “FLOP27,” but in a different way. The developing nations and particularly the BRICS appear to have turned the tables on the World Economic Forum’s “Green Deal.” The bitter disappointment expressed this year by COP26 President, British Tory MP Alok Sharma, who wept while closing COP26 last year in Glasgow which he chaired, was that of an oligarchical agent who’d gotten whipped.
On Nov. 15 at COP27, the ministers responsible for “climate” of the five BRICS countries released a statement, quoted then in South Africa’s industry site, Engineering News, which began:
“[The] Ministers pledged their full support to the Egyptian COP27 Presidency for a successful conference, which should deliver an ambitious, equitable and balanced outcome, including substantial progress towards the establishment of a financial mechanism for Loss and Damage, the New Collective Quantified Finance Goal and operationalisation of the Global Goal on Adaptation, as well as completion of the Work Program on Mitigation. The introduction of a dedicated agenda item on a funding arrangement for Loss and Damage, at the initiative of developing countries, is a welcome development.”
That “welcome development” is, apparently, the gist of what came out of COP27. As Sharma fumed, “Emissions peaking before 2025 as the science tells us is necessary? Not in this text. Clear follow-through on the phase-down of coal? Not in this text. Clear commitment to phase out all fossil fuels? Not in this text. The energy text? Weakened in the final minutes.”
