UN climate conference in Egypt: Olaf Scholz announces billions in German investment
Created: 07/11/2022, 19:06
By: Florian Naumann, Bettina Menzel, Stefanie Fischhaber
Overshadowed by numerous crises, the two-week UN climate conference started in Egypt on Sunday.
Olaf Scholz announces billion-euro investment.
Von der Leyen
at the
climate conference
: climate change is the "greatest challenge".
Climate conference
in
Egypt
: meteorologists presented drastic statistics at the start
Baerbock plain text
even before the start: The Foreign Minister sees the world ahead of the "abyss".
This
news ticker for the UN climate conference
is updated regularly.
Update from November 7th, 6:46 p.m.:
As a contribution to the global fight against global warming, Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised at the UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh that the German contribution to international forest protection would be doubled from one to two billion euros.
The additional billion for the period up to 2025 will be provided by the Federal Development Ministry, as the department announced on Monday.
"This commitment is a strong sign of solidarity, both for the world climate conference in Egypt and for the world conference on nature in December in Canada," said Federal Development Minister Svenja Schulze in Berlin.
Forests are "home to animal and plant species, but also the basis of life for people all over the world".
That's why "protecting the forest is also about fighting poverty," emphasized Schulze.
Climate conference in Egypt: According to von der Leyen, climate change is the "greatest challenge"
Update from November 7th, 11:05 a.m
.: "We are facing many challenges, but climate change is the biggest," EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has now tweeted.
The COP27 is about fulfilling promises made.
"We must do everything we can to keep 1.5 degrees within reach."
However, climate researchers see the goal in danger.
Von der Leyen now pointed out that the "Fit for 55" climate package is being implemented, which is intended to reduce the EU's greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990. Details are currently being negotiated.
In addition, the EU is massively switching to renewable energies, wrote von der Leyen.
COP27: Ursula von der Leyen (left) at the UN World Climate Conference, here with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak © Steve Reigate Daily Express
Update from November 7, 7:24 a.m .:
Before Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) traveled to the UN climate conference in Egypt, Franziska Brantner (Greens) rejected a further increase in the German contribution to international climate finance.
Germany has already "raised its international climate finance to a maximum level," said the State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection to the newspapers of the Bayern media group (Monday editions).
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At the summit of the G7 group, the Chancellor promised to increase this sum to at least six billion euros a year by 2025, explained the Green politician.
Half of this goes into climate protection, the other half into adjustments to the climate crisis.
"In doing so, we are responding to the legitimate demands of the global south," emphasized Brantner.
A novelty at the climate conference: costs for climate-related damage in poorer countries on the agenda
Update from November 6, 4:40 p.m.:
Novelty at the World Climate Conference: For the first time, the costs of climate-related damage in poorer countries are officially on the agenda.
The 200 participating countries agreed on this on Sunday at the "COP27" in Sharm el Sheikh.
The presidency spoke of a "historic step".
The term "loss and damage" is used to discuss how the consequences of climate change can be shouldered jointly in poorer countries.
Historically, these countries have often contributed less to climate change.
However, the issues have not yet been resolved.
The fight really starts with the item on the agenda, said Greenpeace delegation head Yeb Saño.
World Resource Institute President Ani Dasgupta added: "We still have a marathon to go before countries take a formal decision on this key issue for CO27."
Climate conference in Egypt: meteorologists presented drastic statistics at the start
Update from November 6, 3:10 p.m .:
At the start of the UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh (COP27), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published a report that once again makes the serious heating of the earth clear.
According to the current data, each of the past eight years has been hotter than any previous one in history, the WMO report says.
And in view of climate change, it is "only a matter of time" before even hotter years are registered.
The information from the WMO is not yet definitive because only preliminary temperature data is available for the current year.
According to this, 2022 should rank fifth or sixth of the hottest years ever.
The final evaluation will be published next year.
"As COP27 kicks off, our planet is sending out a distress signal," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
The WMO report is the "chronicle of a climate chaos".
Baerbock on the climate crisis: "Humanity is heading for an abyss"
Update from November 6th, 8.15 a.m .:
Shortly before the start of the COP27 world climate conference in Egypt, Germany called curbing global warming its top priority.
"Humanity is heading for an abyss, for a warming of over 2.5 degrees, with devastating effects on our life on the only planet we have," said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) on Sunday.
The world has “all the tools it needs to limit the climate crisis and get on the 1.5 degree path.”
40,000 participants are expected to attend the conference, which begins on Sunday and is taking place in Africa for the first time since 2016.
At the COP27, representatives from almost 200 countries in Sharm el Sheikh spent two weeks negotiating how the fight against global warming can be stepped up.
Time is of the essence, as the past seven years have been the warmest since weather records began.
Extreme weather events in Pakistan, Nigeria and Somalia, among others, have recently shown the enormous damage and deadly destructive power of climate change.
The 27th UN climate conference begins on Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt
Preliminary report from November 5th:
Sharm el-Sheikh - Overshadowed by the economic and energy crises and the Ukraine war, the 27th UN climate conference begins on Sunday (November 6th).
The annual conference will take place this year in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
For two weeks, 190 countries will discuss effective climate protection measures.
In the run-up to the conference, there was criticism of the chances of success.
From November 6th to 18th, numerous heads of state and government will meet again to agree on effective goals in climate protection.
40,000 participants are expected to attend the conference, which will be held in Africa for the first time since 2016.
Already on Saturday, participants flocked to the city on the Red Sea, which is otherwise primarily known as a holiday resort with beautiful beaches.
In order to give the negotiations momentum, a so-called high-level segment with around 125 heads of state and government will take place on Monday and Tuesday after the opening on Sunday, in which Chancellor Olaf Scholz will also take part.
Scholz will attend the conference for two days.
Climate justice in the focus of the UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh
It is expected that the heads of state and government will decide on further national self-commitments in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees as envisaged in the Paris climate agreement.
Another sticking point is the financial support of developing countries for climate protection measures and measures to adapt to global warming.
Here, too, the industrialized countries are lagging behind their promises.
The focus should also be on the topic of climate justice, as Anja Berretta, head of the regional program “Energy Security and Climate Change Sub-Saharan Africa” of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, explained in an interview with Ippen.Media.
Expectations are high that the COP27 will finally take account of the climate damage already occurring in developing countries.
The 27th UN Climate Change Conference begins in Egypt on Sunday.
© Gehad Hamdy/ dpa
Skepticism about prospects of success: Steinmeier expects little from China and Russia
In the run-up to the conference, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was skeptical about the current crises.
The world is entering a new period of conflict, if not confrontation, Steinmeier said at a climate policy roundtable in the South Korean city of Busan on Saturday (November 5).
"It is difficult to imagine that in times of conflict and even military confrontation, states like Russia or China will play a constructive role in and after Sharm el-Sheikh."
The mood among climate researchers is also subdued.
The renowned climate economist Ottmar Edenhofer has very low expectations of the two-week meeting.
It was about “building a relationship of trust again,” said the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the
FAZ
.
It's almost like a therapy session.
Among other things, there are “massive distribution conflicts” on the subject of money, for example for climate protection in poorer countries.
Criticism of COP27: Increased CO₂ emissions and human rights situation at the venue
Climate researcher Mojib Latif also expressed resignation.
"There are no breakthroughs," said the President of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg of the Bayern media group.
The conferences are "unproductive", because there "papers with little substance are celebrated as great progress".
At what is now the 27th World Climate Conference, the result so far is “that global CO₂ emissions have exploded”.
There is also constant criticism at the venue.
Egypt's government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is repeatedly criticized for the human rights situation.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press have been massively curtailed.
Human rights activists repeatedly report serious violations.
(sf/dpa/AFP)
