Climate Change & COP27 Agendas: What Do Countries & Negotiating Blocs Want?

There are over 200 countries participating in the summit, using the global forum to ask for what they want.

A man walks past a board showing the 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Nov. 5, 2022.

(Xinhua/Sui Xiankai/IANS)

The time has arrived for the 27^th Conference of Parties, which is being hosted in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt from 6 November to the 18 November, 2022.

There are over 200 countries participating in the summit, all bringing different agendas regarding climate action to the table and using the global forum to ask for what they want. Most of these negotiations are not done by countries individually, there are negotiating blocs where countries with shared stances get together to further their agenda.

The most prominent point of discussion, featured in the agendas of most countries, will be climate finance.

There has been ongoing discourse about climate finance, the divide being stark between developed and developing countries. COP 27 is expected to be a possible cornerstone, with developing countries and their negotiating groups standing firm on holding developed countries accountable.

Let's take a quick look at the key-words that we need to understand before we get to the agendas.

What Is Climate Finance?

Developed nations are historical polluters, while developing countries have mostly been on the receiving end of the impacts of catastrophic climate events, without having contributed much to them and without being developed or prepared enough to deal with them.

As the term suggests, climate finance means the money required to deal with the ongoing global climate crisis.

In Rio de Janeiro at the Earth Summit, June 1992, when the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was drafted, the term 'climate finance' came up for the first time.

The 100 billion dollar promise: In 2009, it was decided that 100 billion dollars would be paid every year till 2020 by the developed world to the developing countries. At COP21 in Paris, under the Paris Agreement, it was decided that this payment would be extended till 2025 and the amount would be revised after that.

You can watch our explainer on climate finance here.

What is the Paris Agreement?

The Paris Agreement of 2015 is a “legally binding” international treaty on climate change. It is considered to be a landmark event in the global politics around climate change.

In December 2015, the conference of parties on climate change or COP21 was held in Paris, and it was there that 196 parties decided to adopt this treaty -- the larger aim of which was to limit global warming.

Watch our explainer on the Paris Agreement here.

What Are Nationally Determined Contributions?

The NDCs are the commitments towards climate action made by all countries who signed the Paris Agreement. NDCs determine a larger framework for a country’s steps and strategies towards combatting climate change.

Under this, countries declare what they are going to do as individual units to contribute to this common cause of saving the planet -- while also ensuring that they are taking enough measures to tackle the ongoing climate crisis, as well as the foreseeable extreme weather events in their own countries.

Global Conference, National Agendas

Here is a quick look at the different agenda's for major countries attending COP 27. You can zoom and tap on the highlighted countries to review their agendas.

The Climate Blocs

Countries often don't act as individual units at climate negotiations, they act in blocs or groups under the UNFCCC. The blocs have there agendas which resonate with the agendas of specific countries, and often overlap with each other Almost every country is a member of more than one bloc.

Here is a quick look at the important blocs at COP27 and their agendas.

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