November 6-18
COP27 Climate Implementation Summit Opens in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt
Bengladesh, November 4, 2022
The Climate Implementation Summit is scheduled to take place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt from November 6-18. The agenda for November 7-8 includes the "presidency vision" which declares the time has come for:
1. "Shifting from pledging to implementation at scale and on time, based on the agreed work streams in Paris and the ambition reflected until and during Glasgow, it is time to accelerate, scale up, replicate success stories and deliver through the right mechanisms;
2. "... [a] transformative adaptation agenda is needed now...;
3. "Action to clarify support for loss and damage, with the increasing impacts of more frequent extreme weather events and speeding slow onset events...;
4. "Making finance flows a reality, ... appropriate financial flows;
5. "Ensuring a managed and just transition, based on the agreed principles in the Convention and its Paris Agreement, to deliver the agreed transition to an economic model based on low emission and climate resilient development as envisaged in Paris Agreement and the enhanced action identified in Glasgow."
Action by Somali Youth Climate Justice, November 2, 2022
This year's summit was preceded by a People's COP27 on November 1, in virtual form only. The People's COP27 stated:
"Those most affected by our warming world are shut out of the negotiations that will determine the future of our planet. Global action on climate change is not happening fast enough.
"The world's biggest multi-national meetings held to discuss humanity's collective response to the climate crisis are the United Nations' Climate Change Conference of the Parties -- the climate COPs -- now in their 27th year.
"As the world heats up, the voices of those first and worst affected by the climate crisis are not being listened to in the air-conditioned halls of these conferences. The delegates of this year's COP27 must listen to the people already living with the severe consequences of our warming world."
This
increasing gulf between so-called civil society and those who wield
political power, as well as the limited space for the peoples to
express their demands at the COP, is reflected in recent remarks from
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Speaking at an event in
London, England at the
end of October, she said she would not attend this year's COP, which
she referred to as an opportunity for "people in power... to [use]
greenwashing, lying and cheating." She added, "The space for civil
society is going to be extremely limited.... It's important to leave
space for those who need to
be there. It will be difficult for activists to make their voices
heard."
The mass protests that took place around the proceedings of COP26 in Glasgow last year are not expected for this year's summit. News agencies report that a designated protest zone has been set up in an isolated area away from the conference centre.
The promise of action made with much desperation seven years ago at COP21 in Paris and reiterated at the Glasgow COP26 summit last year never materialized. No amount of intervention by hedge funds, or the fact that they now have a direct representative in the office of the prime minister in Britain, as well as a British king who claims to have all the answers in hand to pay the rich to green the economy, will transform this faded rose into a king's ransom because the people know that what is needed is to humanize the natural and social environment. What is missing is putting human beings in first place.
The hedge funds are lined up for the promised financial killing, but the armaments producers, oil and gas speculators, and oligopolies which control agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, real estate and construction as well as mining and other such sectors of the neo-liberal economies are also vying for investment funds. At the same time, the peoples of the world are fighting against the use of state power to pay the rich and drive the masses of workers into poverty and the peoples of the world into famines, droughts and epidemics.
Manchester, November 4, 2022
(Photos: J. Hannu, E.N. Forngwa, Somali Youth for Climate Justice, Debt Justice MCR, Climate Justice UK)
This article was published in
Volume 52 Number 43 - November 6, 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmld2022/Articles/D520431.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca