COP27 UN Climate Change Conference which kicked off yesterday 6th of November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
During COP1 in Berlin, with representatives from 117 countries, the Berlin Mandate was established, which had as its main focus the consensus of all countries to take more energetic actions regarding the mitigation of the greenhouse effect.
Among other resolutions, it was defined that the commitment of developed countries to reduce their emissions to 1990 levels, by the year 2000, would not be sufficient to achieve the Convention's long-term objectives.
On December 11, 1997, delegates from more than 150 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement to lower the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Human activities release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which have been proven to cause climate change.
The COP26 international climate conference took place in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021. The main goal was to secure global net zero by mid-century and keep a maximum of 1.5 C degrees of warming within reach. Net zero means total emissions are equal to or less than the emissions removed from the environment.
Other goals included accelerating the phase-out of coal and mobilising at least $100bn in climate finance per year.
Why does COP27 matter?
In short, in order to keep the goal of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5°C, we need to cut emissions in half by the end of the decade. Overall, the commitments laid out at the last COP event didn’t come sufficiently close to limiting warming to 1.5°C. Scientists agree that the window for this is closing, and the current plans as they stand put us on track for a 2.5°C of warming by the end of the century. It’s better than the 4°C we were on, but there’s still a way to go to keep 1.5°C alive.
Since COP 1, This is COP 27. There'll also be COP28 and 29, and 30 and onwards, meanwhile global warming is going warmer and warmer
With climatic devastation everywhere: Droughts in Sudan, floods in Pakistan and Italy, fires in California and Amazonas, Hurricanes in Florida, Droughts in Portugal and Spain, pollution in New Delhi. Is it still a way of of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5°C by the mid-century? I guess not.