COP27: UN climate conference heads into final week with warming goal uncertain

The COP27 UN talks are due to wrap up Friday but could extend into the weekend if negotiators need more time to reach an agreement.

Global climate talks in Egypt headed into their second half on Monday with plenty of uncertainty left over whether there’ll be a substantial deal to combat climate change.

Tens of thousands of attendees, including delegates from nearly 200 countries, observers, experts, activists and journalists, returned to the conference zone in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after a one-day break.

The UN’s top climate official appealed for constructive diplomacy to match the high-flying rhetoric heard during the opening days of the talks.

“Let me remind negotiators that people and planet are relying on this process to deliver,” UN Climate Secretary Simon Stiell said.

“Let’s use our remaining time in Egypt to build the bridges needed to make progress,” he added, citing the goals of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) as agreed in the Paris climate accord, adapting to climate change, and providing financial aid to vulnerable nations trying to cope with its impacts.

What happens at the G-20 in Bali, as well as at a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping on the sidelines, will be crucial to what happens at the climate summit. If the G-20 makes progress on climate, it will be easier in Egypt, but if they backslide, especially on the 1.5 goal, it will undermine the climate summit, said Alden Meyer, a long-time observer of U.N. climate meetings with the environmental think tank E3G.

“What the two presidents decide in Bali will play directly into the endgame here in Sharm El-Sheikh,” he said.

A handshake between Biden and Xi was already noted positively by negotiators at COP, who are also looking to see whether the U.S. and China can resume formal talks on climate.