Tausi Insider

The sun sets behind the COP27 logo outside the conference venue on Saturday, Nov. 12 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Peter Dejong/The Associated Press It’s halfway time at the UN climate talks in Egypt, with negotiators still working on draft agreements before ministers arrive next week to push for a substantial deal to fight climate change. The two-week meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh started with strong appeals from world leaders for greater efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and help poor nations cope with global warming. Scientists say the amount of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere needs to be halved by 2030 to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord. The 2015 pact set a target of ideally limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, but left it up to countries to decide how they want to do so. Here is a look at the main issues on the table at the COP27 talks: What about the U.S. and China? The top U.S. negoti...

Last Friday, Nov. 11, 2022, a watermelon made an appearance at the Ukrainian pavilion at COP27 in Egypt. Handout There is no Russian pavilion at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt. There is a Ukrainian one and it has been a hit, not just because of the environmental message it delivers but for its powerful anti-war message, too. Last Friday, an unusual guest made an appearance at the pavilion: a watermelon. It was brought in to celebrate the liberation of Kherson from Russian occupation and was placed on a chair draped with the Ukrainian flag. The fruit became a symbol of Ukraine’s victory last week when a video of a Ukrainian soldier entering the city while holding up a watermelon, as crowds cheered, went viral. “Ukraine is very good at procuring howitzers and HIMARS missiles – also watermelons in Egypt,” Oleksiy Ryabchin, Ukraine’s chief climate negotiator and former deputy minister of energy and environment, told Tausi Insider. Finding the watermelon was not easy, since they ar...

A woman walks past a COP27 sign at the UN climate summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Nov. 16. Peter Dejong/The Associated Press UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged world governments to “stand and deliver” a strong climate deal at the COP27 summit in Egypt on Thursday as negotiators remained far apart on key issues a day before the agreement’s deadline. The two-week conference at the seaside resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh is a test of global resolve to combat global warming as governments around the world are buffeted by crises ranging from a land war in Europe to sky-high consumer costs. “Global emissions are at their highest level in history – and rising. Climate impacts are decimating economies and societies – and growing. We know what we need to do – and we have the tools and resources to get it done,” Guterres told the conference. “I am here to appeal to all parties to rise to this moment and to the greatest challenge facing humanity. The world is watching and has a si...

A security personnel stands guard next to a COP27 sign during the closing plenary at the climate summit, in Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Nov. 20. MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY/Reuters The first United Nations climate conference I covered was the 2009 COP15 dud in Copenhagen. Since then, I have worked the conference mob scenes in Paris, Madrid and, earlier this month, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. They were duds, too, in the sense that none ended with formal agreements to reduce fossil-fuel use – the only metric that matters as average global temperatures rise to dangerous levels. The annual COPs have turned into chaotic, bloated carnivals where, in their final desperate hours (most of them go into overtime) the distraught host-country presidency produces a face-saving agreement that allows it to declare a victory of some sort – or at least deflect some of the criticism that the outcome was a total failure. Even a breakthrough that barely fits the definition is billed as a win, sinc...

A COP27 sign in Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Nov. 17. EMILIE MADI/Reuters Fossil fuel producers benefited from sympathetic treatment in Egypt at the COP27 climate talks, government officials said, bringing their influence to bear in rushed final negotiations and frustrating those who hoped for a more ambitious outcome. Officials said the host Egypt, a natural gas exporter and frequent recipient of funds from Gulf oil producers, was partly responsible, although the war in Ukraine and the subsequent European energy crisis also had an impact. Egyptian officials have said their priority was to provide a conducive atmosphere for negotiations and act as a neutral mediator. The presidency denied that fossil fuel producers had been given sympathetic treatment. “The end decision at COP27 was a compilation of inputs reached by consensus of all the UNFCCC parties who were all consulted,” it said in a statement, referring to nearly 200 countries taking part in the summit under th...