(c) Ida Henrich (rspb-images.com)
Today’s blog is written by Fiona Dobson, International Policy Officer, to share RSPB’s priorities for the imminent climate summit, COP27.
RSPB will be at COP27, with our BirdLife family, ready to hold our leaders accountable and push for the best outcomes for nature, climate and people. This is a crucial moment for climate and nature action to be urgently scaled up across the globe, and the stakes could not be higher.
This years’ global climate summit – COP27 – is about to kick off in Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt. Here we’re digging into what COP27 is, what to expect, and what we’re looking to see as RSPB.
What is COP27?
Video clip extracted from a RSPB internal presentation given by Melanie Coath in 21 October 2022.
COP27 is the 27th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – that's the UN Climate Convention. It’ll be taking place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt from November 6th – 18th.
These meetings happen annually, and last year's – COP26 in Glasgow – made big headlines, with leaders coming together in an attempt to ‘keep 1.5oC alive’. Despite falling short on this commitment to safer warming levels in many respects in terms of cutting fossil fuel emissions fast enough, COP26 did deliver a series of pledges and commitments for nature, at a scale not seen before.
This year will mark 30 years since the UNFCCC was established and seven years since the crucial climate deal, the Paris Agreement, was agreed. With a focus on implementation, COP27 is billed as an ‘African COP’ highlighting that African countries’ exposure to some of the most severe impacts of climate change will be front and centre of the discussions. It’s also been billed as the ‘implementation COP’ - we need it to live up to its name. That means seeing urgent action on existing commitments, including those made for nature last year at COP26.
The eyes of the world will soon be on Sharm El-Sheikh, looking for real commitment from our leaders to deliver on past promises, and for new and enhanced commitment to scale up action to the level needed to deliver an equitable, nature-positive, resilient and net-zero emissions world.
RSPB will be at COP27, alongside our BirdLife family, ready to put our ‘Power of Many’ into action.
We will be beating the drum for the role of nature to continue to be recognised and integrated into climate decision-making. The science is clear: if biodiversity protection fails, climate action will fail and vice versa. We will be pushing for the uptake of integrated approaches to tackle both the nature and climate crises through an approach based on human rights. This can be secured through negotiated COP decisions, meaningful policy action and long-term investment.
RSPB key policy priorities for COP27
Video clip extracted from a RSPB internal presentation in October 2022
1. We want a strong political signal to be sent for ambitious outcomes from the Convention on Biological Diversity COP15
Just after COP27 concludes, the UNFCCC’s sister agreement – the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) - will start its COP15 summit. This summit has a big task on its shoulders – to bring countries across the world together to agree a global plan to halt and reverse nature loss this decade (termed the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework). As it stands, there is a huge amount left to do to make this framework ambitious, robust and in a state that is ready to be implemented across the globe. Having the climate and nature summits so close together brings a unique and vital opportunity to build integrated action, and raise the much-needed momentum, urgency and unity for a strong Global Biodiversity Framework.
We’re calling for governments, leaders and non-state actors to publicly and vocally championing the importance to climate action of a successful COP15. We want countries to integrate this into the official COP27 texts, and the presidencies of the Conventions to host a ministerial roundtable on the matter.
2. We want climate and biodiversity action to be integrated at COP27
We know that the climate and nature crises must be tackled together; they are two sides of the same coin. There are many opportunities for this to be achieved in the decisions taken at COP27. One area is the ‘Global Stocktake’ which is the process used to assess countries’ progress in implementing the commitments they made under the Paris Agreement. Action on nature should be a key part of this stocktaking process, given the role of nature in enhancing ambition, increasing resilience and reducing the impacts of climate change.
We also want to see ambitious outcomes for nature in other key work programmes like on mitigation and adaptation alongside a more joined-up approach on science that underpins decision making. We are recommending that the official scientific bodies of the UNFCCC and the CBD – the IPCC and IPBES – work together to conduct a joint report on climate change and biodiversity.
3. We want accountability and additional finance for nature in climate action
Real change relies on promises being turned into action. In a time of ever-increasing urgency, we can’t afford empty words to be offered without finance to underpin action, or accountability mechanisms to monitor progress.
We want to see governments deliver and enhance their commitments to nature within national climate plans – and want these to reflect the ambition of commitments they made at COP26 such as the Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forests and Land Use. Importantly, we need to see the financing on the table to deliver promises, and to scale up finance for crucial areas such as adaptation and loss & damage.
Action from the UK
We are pleased that our new Prime Minister will now be attending COP27. We are expecting him to build from the UK’s COP26 legacy, while signalling to the world that we really are serious about being world leading on climate. The 2019 Conservative manifesto promised “the most ambitious environmental programme on Earth” - we are looking to Rishi Sunak to deliver on that promise (and stop the Attack on Nature at home).
Stay tuned!
As we delve into a busy two weeks of COP27, we’ll be reporting progress on our priorities. Stay tuned to find out what happens and whether COP27 delivers the breakthroughs that are so desperately needed for a brighter future for people and planet.