Egypt will host COP27, the annual United Nations climate talks

Glasgow held COP26 last year but the world has changed considerably over the past year. The full form of COP is Conference of the Parties. There is now an energy crisis, the war in Ukraine, tensions over Taiwan apart from situations like the floods in Pakistan. These have changed the geopolitical concept dramatically. All eyes are now on Egypt where COP27 will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh between 6-18 November. Developing nations will look forward to Egypt, a middle-income developing nation, to provide a stronger platform to their demands. This is an annual event where leaders from almost 200 countries assemble. They put their heads together to evolve methods to tackle the crisis of climate change and its impacts. Apart from leaders, thousands of observers, civil society groups and media attend too. Incidentally, France hosted the 2015 talks. It led to the historic Paris Agreement where countries agreed the need to limit global warming to below 2°C, and ideally to 1.5°C, of warming above pre-industrial levels. COP27: Everything you need to know about the United Nations climate talks in Egypt. One of the attendees would be US President Joe Biden. King Charles, known for his focus on the environment when he was Prince of Wales, would not attend. He pulled out after discussions with Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss. As to the presence of Britain, there is no confirmation on whether the Prime Minister will attend, or whether business secretary Jacob-Rees Mogg will come instead. He supports fossil fuel expansion.

COP might not be the ideal process, but right now, it is the single biggest geopolitical forum for countries to join hands and work together to tackle a threat that has an impact on all of humanity. The violent flooding that ravaged Pakistan is a recent example of how climate change can uproot people from their homes and heap miseries on the community. A relevant issue that might come up is on whether richer countries, responsible for the vast majority of emissions, should pay reparations to poor countries. The latter suffers the worst impacts of climate change. Another contentious issue could be the untapped gas fields of Africa. In the opinion of Nick Mabey, chief executive of think tank E3G, countries could be divided over whether to exploit untapped gas or go straight from fossil fuels to clean power.

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