They got there in the end. After dawn on Sunday morning in Egypt, bleary-eyed ministers adopted a final agreement for COP27 and completed more than two weeks of U.N. climate negotiations in the Sinai peninsula.
The deal included a historic provision to set up a fund to help poorer countries face the harm caused by climate change, and that outcome was understandably celebrated by nations on the front line of a warming world. ¡°A mission 30 years in the making has been accomplished,¡± said Molwyn Joseph, the minister from Antigua and Barbuda and chair of the AOSIS group of small island nations.
But beyond loss and damage ¡ª the COP-world term for paying up for climate catastrophes ¡ª the final deal was a clear disappointment for those wanting to ratchet up the ambitions of last year¡¯s Glasgow agreement. The statement didn¡¯t include a commitment to broaden the pledge to phase down unabated coal emissions to cover all fossil fuels, and there was no reference to global greenhouse gas emissions peaking by 2025.
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