cop27 tagged posts

As Egypt hosts world leaders at COP27 to discuss action over climate change, an oil terminal is dumping toxic wastewater on the country’s Red Sea coast, an investigation by BBC News Arabic has found. A rare form of coral, that offers hope for preserving ocean life as the planet warms, could be a casualty. Leaked documents obtained by the BBC and non-profit journalism group SourceMaterial reveal that “produced water” from Egypt’s Ras Shukeir oil terminal is being dumped into the Red Sea every day.

The barely treated wastewater – which is brought to the surface during oil and gas drilling – contains high levels of toxins, oil and grease.

The documents, which were issued by the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (Gupco) in 2019 to try to hire a company to treat the water, say the pollution...

We’re on the “highway to hell”, the UN warned at COP27 – and not in a good way like AC/DC, but in a very bad way, with continuing weather chaos, famine and mass extinction facing us all.

“Red alert for humanity”, “life or death struggle”, “knocking on famine’s door”. These have all been UN assessments of the situation. But, has it changed anything?

Despite the UN’s increasingly inventive language designed to say how it is, another global climate summit looks to just past us by again.

This year’s COP27 summit – sponsored by Coca-Cola (the world’s number one producer of plastic waste) is really achieving nothing!

One UN official said yesterday – “the COP process is at a crossroads, it must urgently realise its purpose or risk poisoning the well for climate action...

Yesterday at COP27, the U.S. Government announced the Red Sea Initiative – a major new initiative aimed at conserving the Red Sea’s coastal ecosystem, while promoting high-value, low-environmental impact ecotourism. 

Through an initial U.S. Government contribution of $15 million, the Red Sea Initiative plans to: 

● Protect the Red Sea’s coral reef and surrounding coastal ecosystem against the impacts of climate change and human activity; 

● Empower local communities to lead on climate action; 

● Establish a blended finance mechanism to support businesses in building resilience against climate change, reducing emissions, and creating jobs; and 

● Partner with private businesses and other donors to leverage up to $50 million in total funding. 

To advance the w...

COP27 is the next meeting of the group of 198 countries that have signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It will be held in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh on 6-18 November. The UN is urging the world’s industrialized nations to ‘lead by example’ by taking ‘bold and immediate actions’. Five key issues to watch are nature, food, water, industry decarbonization and climate adaptation.

“A third of Pakistan flooded. Europe’s hottest summer in 500 years. The Philippines hammered. The whole of Cuba in blackout. And … in the United States, Hurricane Ian has delivered a brutal reminder that no country and no economy is immune from the climate crisis.”

These are the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres...

World leaders are set to discuss action to tackle climate change, at the UN climate summit in Egypt. It follows a year of climate-related disasters and broken temperature records. UN climate summits are held every year, for governments to agree steps to limit global temperature rises. They are referred to as COPs, which stands for “Conference of the Parties”. The parties are the attending countries that signed up to the original UN climate agreement in 1992. 

COP27 is the 27th annual UN meeting on climate. It will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh from 6 to 18 November.

Why are COP meetings needed?

The world is warming because of emissions produced by humans, mostly from burning fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

Global temperatures have risen 1.1C and are heading towards 1...