Timestamps:
00:00 – 00:39 – Intro
00:40 – 03:19 – COP27: what to keep in mind
03:20 – 05:11 – Climate Jargon
05:12 – 05:36 – What would be a good outcome for COP27?
05:37 – 05:56 – Outro
Show Notes
COP27 – November 2022, the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt hosted the 27th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP 27), with a view to building on previous successes and paving the way for future ambition to effectively tackle the global challenge of climate change.
Transcript
Intro
Ben Hurst 0:01
Welcome to climate quickies, bite sized nuggets of climate goodness from our TEDx London experts in under five
Maryam Pasha 0:08
minutes. On this week’s climate Quickie, we’re joined by Helen Clarkson, the CEO of Climate Group, we caught up with Helen at climate week, NYC to ask her about the upcoming cop 27. This autumn, Helen talks to us about what we can expect what we should look forward to, and what she would see as a good outcome for this meeting of the international community to address climate change over to Helen to tell us more. And remember, stay curious.
COP27: what to keep in mind
So, cop 27 is coming up this fall. There was such a big fanfare in UK last year with cop 26. I, from the perspective you have of working with businesses with governments are lots of different levels, and then lots of different industries, kind of what are the what are the goalposts for this year? And in a way, how are you feeling going into this? What should we be looking for?
Helen Clarkson 1:06
Yeah, so I think one thing that’s worth thinking about is the structure and the rhythm of COP meetings. So you know, the set up their parties to the UNF, Triple C, or this is probably no, that’s the UN Convention on Climate Change, everyone signed it up. And then every year, they come together as a big meeting. Now, those rotate around what they call the blocks, and those are the UN blocks, and the countries are grouped. And the European ones will always be the one the big ones, for a number of reasons, firstly, because we can afford to host them at a kind of bigger scale. And because Europe and include the UK, and that has been traditionally the most ambitious on climate action. So that is why you’ve had this rhythm of like, first Copenhagen was going to be the word then Paris, then Glasgow, because the rotation is every five years. And what they did was with the Paris Agreement, building this five year ratcheting moment, so you’re gonna always find that the big cops happen in Europe that every five years, and the cup after that, it’s kind of what I call the hangover cop, you know, you’ve had the big party, and then it’s like, it’s a little bit downbeat, often, and different things happen, and I think this year, now, that will then always tend to be the Africa COP. And again, you get down into a different set of conversations, you might have a European Cup much more about adaptation much more about loss and damages. So some of the things that should have happened this year at the cup, so some countries coming back with increased ambition, Australia have already done it, actually, because it had their election came back, a couple of other countries might as well. But I think there’s going to be much more conversation about finance. And that’s been the big issue for the global south as they haven’t received the money they’ve been promised. So that’s going to be the big conversation, and a lot more about kind of adaptation, loss and damage. Now those might be more technical issues, but harder for people to kind of lock into, but it’s not, you know, it feels a bit downbeat, maybe at the moment, but it’s not supposed to be this massive moment as Glasgow was it’s much more about the kind of technical issues and are hopeful for some real movement on financing, that would be a really good outcome.
Climate Jargon
Maryam Pasha 3:20
Let me ask you, just to explain a little bit about what we mean by what you mean by adaptation and what you mean by loss and damage for people who are going to hear these phrases a lot that maybe don’t fully understand what they mean.
Helen Clarkson 3:32
So yeah, climate jargon. So mitigation is reducing the amount of carbon that’s emitted. And that is a lot of the focus of climate agreements and negotiations, how much carbon bringing that down to mitigating the amount of carbon adaptation is admitting that you need to change the structure of the world to deal with the climate change. We’re having. Now, the way that the world warms, it will warm more at the polls. So it will be more extreme the temperature rise at the polls. But because of the climate at the equator, it’s going to impact the people living at the equator much more because they’re already if you think about the equator, it’s the hottest bit of the world. So you don’t need much temperature rise to make it basically unlivable. And so when we talk about loss and damages, like the economic loss, and the damage is done, to climates to ecosystems, by the warming of the climate, and the way that the world has been structured is that the North, the global north, particularly Europe, and the US has done the most damage we’ve emitted the most carbon and the impacts are going to be felt by the world’s poorest, who typically live around the equator, hugely oversimplified, but there’s this big conversation about really, it’s the big equity conversation. And so it’s the poor parts of the world saying to the rich part of the world, you need to help us. They lot of avoiding the word compensation, I think but essentially it’s that
What would be a good outcome for COP27?
Maryam Pasha 5:12
what would for you in the position you’re in and be a good outcome for this year’s club?
Helen Clarkson 5:20
I think seeing some real movement on finance is is I think that’s what Egypt going for actually. And I think that’s what we’d really really like to see because that’s been such a huge as endlessly promised, and the delivery has been way, way behind.
Outro
Ben Hurst 5:36
Thanks for listening to this quickie.
Maryam Pasha 5:39
This episode was created by our superstar podcast team at TEDx London, and supported by our headline partner, the global bank Citi. Until next time,
Ben Hurst 5:48
stay curious.
