Outside InCOP27: so far, so blah as rich nations dodge climate bill and funding pledges

Critics say the campaign to prevent warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels has largely failed

Carbon schemes, meanwhile, are criticised for lacking integrity, as rich nations continue to quibble over compensation for loss and damage

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Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon (black T-shirt) stands with runners and organisers as she holds batons at the finish line of the Running Out Of Time climate relay, which arrived from Glasgow, Scotland, after 40 days through 18 countries to reach the COP27 UN Climate Summit, at the Park Regency Hotel in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on November 8. Photo: AP

Published: 4:30pm, 11 Nov 2022Updated: 2:13pm, 13 Nov 2022

This time last year, climate activist Greta Thunberg captured the mood of the COP26 UN climate change summit when she dismissed it as “a two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah, blah, blah”.

This year, she is not attending COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Instead, launching The Climate Book in London, she complained the event was “greenwashing, lying and cheating”. COP27 has much to do to live down its reputation for blah.

The 35,000-or-so delegates attending the annual progress report on climate change and global warming at the Red Sea resort clearly do not share Thunberg’s dismissive gloom – though the amount of positive news was barely measurable.

The World Meteorological Organisation reported that the past eight years have been the eight warmest on record (this year will only be the fifth or sixth warmest because of a cooling La Nina current). It said glacier melt was at record levels in Europe and Greenland, with “major implications” for global water security and sea levels.

At the same time, the UN Expert Group on Climate Finance reported that the campaign ahead of COP26 in Glasgow to keep 1.5 alive had largely failed. The aim was to contain global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius of the temperature in pre-industrial times (1850–1900).

The Expert Group criticised the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (Gfanz), established with much fanfare last year by Mark Carney, former head of the Bank of England, and the financial sector in general, arguing that their carbon credit schemes could lack “integrity”.