Countries urged to make progress as ‘untransparent, unpredictable and chaotic’ talks in danger of collapse
Crucial climate talks are in disarray after a feverish night of “chaos”, hurried meetings and disinformation, with a stark warning that the vital goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C was in danger of being lost.
Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister who is president of the Cop27 UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, called on countries to make progress as the talks ran on well into Saturday afternoon, nearly a day after their scheduled close on Friday evening, with no end in sight.
Countries rowing back on the global goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, agreed at last year’s Cop26 summit in Glasgow.
Text that abandoned the key commitment for countries to improve their national plans on emissions cuts each year, also agreed in Glasgow.
“Highly unusual” conduct of the negotiations by the Egyptian hosts, which meant countries were not jointly consulted on draft text that involved changes to key decisions.
“Disinformation” when a key document was doctored and disseminated so as to appear to come from several countries that were not involved in it.
An atmosphere of chaos and suspicion, in which some countries were accused of putting pressure on poorer and more vulnerable nations to act against their own best interests.
A blame game in which countries were preparing to blame any collapse on rivals.
Delegations phoning their capitals for fresh instructions on how to proceed.