COP27 agreement might immorally water-down climate change targets, says Bath MP

17 November 2022

On Thursday November the 17th, The UN climate agency published a first draft of what may be the COP27 agreement.

25% more fossil fuel lobbyists attended COP27 this year, contrasting the mood of those struggling under the cost of living crisis.

At the same time, the conference has failed to call for a phase down of fossil fuels, nor substantive details around a loss and damage fund which has been a key demand from countries most vulnerable to climate change. The draft agreement specifies simply “noting that net zero by 2050 requires huge leaps in clean energy innovation.”

This comes despite the UN and the International Energy Agency saying that there must be no new fossil fuel development if the 1.5oC is to be met.

NDCs, nationally determined contributions to reaching warming targets, were required under the Paris agreement to be resubmitted every five years. From COP26, it was agreed that these would be submitted annually.

This year, a minority of countries submitted NCDs, which are estimated to be around 2.5oC. This is vastly off track of the 1.5oC target.

The draft agreement also stresses the importance of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C, instead of focusing primarily on the 1.5oC target that had been agreed previously. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that a 2oC target is far too high to successfully mitigate the effects of climate change.

Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath, commented:

“The window for limiting heating to 1.5oC is fast closing. Acknowledging and noting what must change is as good as saying nothing.

“There must be action equal to the scale and urgency of the climate crisis in order to save the planet. There is no more time for dither and delay.

“Greenwashing, sponsorship and tiptoeing around the devastating reality of climate change has plagued this COP. The future of our planet has been unjustifiably let down.”