Last week of COP27 begins
For the 27th time, the world's states and organizations are meeting to find a joint solution to the most challenging problem of our time: The climate crisis. This year's Conference of the Parties (COP27) has been underway in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh since November 6., which makes the city the first to host an UN climate conference on the African continent. These conferences are organized by the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
At the beginning of COP27, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on states to introduce a climate solidarity pact. The alternative to a common pact of solidarity, he said, is a pact of collective suicide. He reiterated that not all countries contributed equally to climate damage through emissions, which is why states such as the world's current largest emitters, the United States and China, must play a special role in the fight against the climate crisis.
For COP27, the organizers developed various theme days on which individual topics are to be the focus of discussions. Thus, Saturday November 12 was dedicated to non-governmental organizations (NGOs). There are NGOs from various fields of work among the participants of COP27, which are generally oriented towards the 17 development goals of the 2030 Agenda and are active, for example, in the fields of environmental protection, development or the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples. The theme days of the last week of this year's conference are Gender & Water (November 14), Energy and Civil Society (November 15), Biodiversity (November 16) and Solutions Day (November 17).
There are multiple ways to follow the last week of COP27 from home. The UNFCCC YouTube channel offers livestreams and recordings of various climate panels. On their websites, UNFCCC and the United Nations handing out a lot of background information to their readers. You may also listen to the official COP27 podcast here.