Climate talks: The EU said it would “rather have no result than a bad result.”
Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt:
The European Union said on Saturday it would prefer “no outcome” to a bad one at UN climate talks, after rejecting a proposal by summit host Egypt as insufficiently ambitious on cutting carbon emissions.
European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said the EU would “prefer no result than a bad result” and was ready to abandon negotiations altogether, but added that they still hoped for a good result.
The “vast majority” of nations attending the climate talks say Egypt’s proposed package of resolutions is “balanced,” COP27 President Sameh Shoukry said after the EU criticized the text.
“The vast majority of the parties indicated to me that they considered the text to be balanced and that it constitutes a potential breakthrough that can lead to a consensus,” Shoukry, who is also Egypt’s foreign minister, told reporters as the talks began. they were prolonged.
“At this stage, the Egyptian presidency is questioning the progress made in Glasgow on reducing emissions,” an official from the French Ministry of Energy Transition told AFP, referring to the outcome of last year’s COP26. “This is unacceptable for France and for the countries of the European Union.”
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius compared to the late 19th century.
They also committed to the aspirational goal of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5°C, which scientists later confirmed was a much safer barrier against catastrophic climate impacts.
This more ambitious 1.5°C target was adopted last year in Glasgow, with countries agreeing to review their carbon reduction targets annually.
“The problem is that the Egyptian presidency is trying to push through a text that removes the obligation for countries to regularly strengthen their national targets to meet the 1.5C target,” the French official said.
Timmermans, who heads the EU delegation to COP27, said the talks were “in overtime”.
“The EU is united in our ambition to move forward and build on what we agreed in Glasgow,” he wrote on Twitter. “Our message to partners is clear: we cannot accept 1.5C dying here today.”
Two-week talks in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh have bogged down on a series of intertwined issues, including how, and how quickly, to funnel money to vulnerable developing countries that they have already been hit by weather-induced storms and droughts. , heat waves and floods.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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