The good, the bad and the exceedingly ugly of this year’s Cop

Let’s be clear, climate leadership from this government is sorely lacking

Cop27 was billed as one of the most consequential global climate summits in a generation. As the UN Secretary General warned earlier this year: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator”. From deadly floods in Pakistan, to extreme heat in the UK: devastating climate impacts are only going to get worse.

Yet how did our prime minister respond to the summit? First of all he refused to even turn up, before being forced into a screeching U-turn. Then as the summit concluded this weekend, all he could muster in response to its outcome was a 33-word tweet. And today, when in the absence of a statement from the government, I dragged a minister to the House of Commons to provide an update on the Cop27 outcome; he sent the industry minister, who didn’t attend the summit, to respond on his government’s behalf.

If he’s not prepared to assess the outcome of Cop27, I certainly am – the good, the bad, and the exceedingly ugly.

Firstly, the good: at long last, and after over three decades of campaigning, a loss and damage finance fund was finally agreed. Despite smears from the right-wing press, wealthy countries listened to the overwhelming chorus from the Global South and climate vulnerable countries – including impassioned speeches such as those by Pakistan’s prime minister, after the nation’s devastating floods.

They eventually acknowledged that the nations who are the biggest polluters must pay up to help poorer countries deal with a crisis not of their own making. There’s still a lot to be done – the fund is meaningless unless governments like our own ensure that it is adequately financed to support vulnerable countries. And that’s new and additional money, not cash raided from an ever-dwindling overseas aid budget. But the fund is certainly a breakthrough, and one which Global South countries say mustn’t be dismissed.

Now to the bad: Cop27 made no progress on the single biggest driver of the climate emergency, fossil fuels. India put forward a proposal to phase down all fossil fuels, not just coal as was agreed in Glasgow. But the world’s biggest polluting countries, and the climate-wrecking fossil fuel companies that sit alongside them – ubiquitous at this year’s summit – put paid to that.

The world’s governments are already planning to produce more than twice the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with a liveable future. No wonder island states like Tuvalu, hardest hit by the climate emergency, are demanding a global fossil fuel treaty to keep new fossil fuel reserves in the ground for good. Why won’t governments like ours sign up to it?

Then we come to the ugly: Cop27 was mired by our failure to release Alaa Abd el-Fattah. A British citizen, a father to a 10-year-old son, a dearly loved brother, writer and pro-democracy activist, Alaa has been unlawfully imprisoned by the Egyptian authorities for more than nine years. Ministers were “concerned”, and the prime minister “raised the case” with his Egyptian counterpart.

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So why is Alaa’s family still – after two weeks of opportunities for diplomatic leverage have come and gone – being forced to seek answers and action? Alaa has faced threats and intimidation, he’s suffered fainting fits and mental breakdowns, and he’s been put on suicide watch – yet the government is standing idly by.

Let’s be clear, climate leadership from this government is sorely lacking. Sunak’s frankly pathetic statement from the weekend is just the latest example of climate delay – from greenlighting swathes of new oil & gas licences in the North Sea; to refusing to rule out a new coal mine in Cumbria; to maintaining an effective ban on onshore wind and blocking solar farms.

Cop27 represented a tiptoe forward, when we desperately needed a giant leap. We simply don’t have time for timid dawdling, and modest progress. The transformation of our economy to align with a liveable future is going to happen – our government should be leading the way on a managed and orderly transition nationally, not taking us down the path to more climate chaos.