Climate Change Is Already Wreaking Havoc On The COP27 Host

n Climate Change Conference. It's known this year as COP seven because it's the one since the first one back in the idea, of course, to try to slow the warming of the world, and that is a tall challenge at the moment. With inflation and energy prices staring, some countries are putting climate promises on hold and leaning back into dirty fuel like coal and gas. One of the country's hardest hit by rising temperatures is Egypt. It's getting harder at twice the pace of some other nations. Mike

Hallig Lava Milan in Madrid joins me. Now she reades about climate and she's covering the conference. Laura, thanks for being here, Thanks so much for having me. Can you give us just a little refreshing course exactly what is capped and what are they going to try to accomplish their cop Tent seven is the most important climate gathering of the year. It's sponsored by the United Nations and during this meeting, climate negotiators from all the countries in

the world meet. The ultimate goal for all of them is to avoid catastrophic climate change. So at the moment, the planet is warming at a very fast pace, and if it continues like that, at the end of the century, we will have reached a level of warming of three degrees celsius compared to pre industrial times, so that will make some parts of the world unlivable. The mission of these negotiators is to find measures to cut greenhouse gas

emissions in order to lower the level of warming. So in when the Paris Climate Treaty was signed, which set big, ambitious goals for all the world to follow to do exactly what you're saying, slow the rate of climate change, they set this goal of to degrees celsius. They were gonna try to keep the warming to that rate, and yet we're seeing it kind of creep above that already in some countries. Is it cynical of me to ask? Every year they come together, politicians and scientists and activists

all have this conversation. It's all very serious, and they come forward with pleasures that they signed, and there's big photos taken and not a lot really happens after that. Well, that's one way to see it. Science tells us that warming below to the Greek Celsius by the end of the century is possible if we got the missions fast. Science also tells us that we have the technologies we need to lower the level of worming. And what would some of those be, those technologies that exists if we

would just use them. Things that we are all familiar with today, like renewable energy, like better installation of homes or electric vehicles. All those sorts of things would help us lower emissions a long way. All these talks help. You have to imagine it in a way. You can imagine like COP is the top of a very long process, and at the end of that process are things like, for example, if you get in your country tax rebates for buying an e bike or an electric vehicle. It

all starts at COPS. These big, big objectives are set at the COP meetings every year. We all must speed up our race to net zero. The United States are not only back at the table, but hopefully leading by the power of our example fronts. But broadly, the Open Union as well as the United Kingdom are today ready to meet their commitment. India the only big economy in the world that has delivered both in letter and spirit

on its Paris commitments. Last year, the Cup Climates was in Glasgow and at the end of it, the big goal that they set there was each country was going to go home and do some homework. They were going to set new goals for each of their countries on what they could do to limit the you know, increase in the Earth's temperature coming into copy. Have those countries actually all submitted those plans? No, they haven't. Between Copton T six last year and Coptain seven this year, a

lot has happened in the world. I mean, let's just name them. We have Russia invading Ukraine, which has put a huge pressure on energy and cause energy spikes, had huge heat spikes. What else, We've got food shortages, We've got inflation. So governments across the world have been super

busy trying to deal with the immediate problems. Maybe they haven't been as busy thinking about the problems of what happens at the end of the century or in ten twenty fifty years time, So that's part of the reason why many of them haven't submitted new climate plants. Also, the language for the decision for at COP ten to six was a bit vague. It wasn't super clear that every country in the world had to submit new targets.

So given what you just said, does it seemed to you, as someone who covers this all the time, that climate is always this very urgent important thing until anything else happens, and then it's one of the first things to be kind of pushed aside for more immediate concerns, and everybody says, well, yeah, it's important that we had to deal with this first. I think it used to be like that, but it isn't like that anymore. There is a tendency to do that when you have the immediate word in Ukraine, the

risk of blackouts in Europe this winter. But it's also true that because the world swarming at such a fast space, we are seeing already the effects of climate change in the form of extreme weather events everywhere right now. So this is forcing politicians who might have the temptation to just walk away from this and focus on the problems of today. It's forcing them to realize that climate change

is actually a problem of today. And one of the places where we are seeing the real results of climate change right now is Egypt, where this year's conference is being held. And I mean, I guess you could say that Egypt is sort of the case study of what happens if the world doesn't get serious about climate change. Can you describe what is happening with Egyptian Wyatt's become such an urgent problem there. Egypt is a country that's already covered by desert. The part that's not covered by

desert is the Nile River. Flows from the Nile River are diminishing because it's raining less upstreme and also because country is like Ethiopia, while Ethiopia basically is building a giant dam upstream denial, so that means less water for Egypt. At the same time, Egypt is being impacted by sea level rice from the Mediterranean which is flooding the Delta and wreaking crops from cotton to all sorts of of

grains essential to feed Egypt. Basically, because the country is desert itself, a lot of it it's affected by increasing heat, especially in cities which are becoming bigger because life in the countryside is becoming difficult. What we're seeing in Egypt is that it is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet. Yes, so we know that Egypt is warming about twice as fast as the rest

of the planet. And we know that if temperatures keep increasing globally at this space, some parts of Egypt with the temperatures as high as fifty degrees celsius, for example, during heat waves, we know the average temperature in the country will rise by almost five degrees. This will mean that life in many places in Egypt will become almost

impossible or really challenging. So I should say for those people listening in the US, we're talking about two degrees celsius, but we're talking about is three point six series in fahrenheaving. So if we're looking at the potential for five degrees celsius increased, that's nine degrees fahrenheit, So a very large leap and one that would have absolutely devastating effects. What do you think, given all of this, we can expect from the CAP twenty seven conference or what are the

goals that they're trying to accomplish. So this Compton to seven will not end with one big agreement like we saw in Paris in twenty fifteen, for example. What the organizers are saying is that this is an implementation COP. What that means is that all the agreements that have been signed over the years they need to advance. They want to make sure all these little agreements or big

agreements that have been signed through the years advanced. We will not have possibly a big headline coming out from COP, but it also means that implementation, that the actually how this becomes a reality will advance. And this is actually them almost as important as one big headline statement. My conversation with Laura will continue, but first I'd like to bring in my colleagues Salma l or Dainy for a

view from Egypt. That's just after the break. We're going to continue our conversation now with Sama l our Dainy, energy reporter based in Cairo, someone we've been hearing all about how politicians are talking at a very high level about what nations can do working together to slow climate change. You've gone out into Egypt where the CAP twenty seven conferences being held to talk to people who are experiencing

it right now. And Egypt, which is warming faster than the rest of the planet, UH is seeing the effects that everyone is talking about in these rooms, UH, in their everyday lives. Can you tell us what you saw and what people told you. So farmers, especially in the area where I did my story and where most of egypt food production and agriculture has been and has been historically,

that's the delta. Egypt farmers have lived their whole lives and the lives of the grand grandparents on these lands, and now the nile is shrinking and the water doesn't reach them anymore, especially in the case of bal Team, the village where my story is. That's the top point in the delta strip, which means that it's almost touching the Mediterranean Sea, which also means it's vulnerable to the soil southernization because of the rise of the sea levels.

Some of you spoke to one farmer and let's hear just a bit of what he said. The water quality is not helping and it's affecting the soil. I can't give it enough water, so it affects the crops, rice, cotton, in the all produce. In the past, we could farm with less water. It was good water. It was a fresh nile water. Now we're drinking treated wastewater in this whole area of around five thou dens. Everyone's drinking wastewater, not fresh water. We've been suffering from this water for

more than twenty years. So yes, this is one of the farmers that I spoke with during my trip. His name is Shoklem Hamadad the Salem, and what he's talking about is a very is an everyday problem, and it's not just related to agriculture. Is actually related like what he's saying to even like the drinking water, the consumption of water. So while team is on the last line of it's it's part of delta, but it's it's pouring into the Mediterranean. So there's there's actually a beach there.

But at the same time there are farmers. The main the main activity is farming there. And because it's very close to the Mediterranean, that's the water is very salty and the soil is very salty, and there's very scarce water resources, whether it's for irrigation or for consumption, and it's not fit for human consumption. For it to be to be fit for consumption, even they have to do a lot of treatment and which they not all of them can necessarily afford. And one of the big problems

seems to be is salonization. That the water is becoming just extremely salty, yes, correct, And for that it means the water, unlike other places, maybe in Egypt, the water is very very high in salt, which means it needs a lot of treatment, and it needs a lot of chemicals to you know, to to make it barely you know, fits for agriculture, let alone drinking. Now you spoke to the same farm her son who is also working the land, and he talked about this problem with salt, which is

essentially poisoning the water and making it unfit. The salionization is what's harming us the most. It makes us want to live here and go farm elsewhere, like in the desert where there aren't high salt levels. Here the salt concentration is high both in the soil and in the water. This farming water, as you can see here, is not fit for irrigation or agriculture. When you were there, were you able to see salt just sitting on top of the land that had essentially been left from the water. Yes,

I it was very very visibility. You can see the white crust all over the crops. It's it's it's very alarming to see. And it's even for them, like for the farmers there, even for them, it's it's like a new phenomena um. And that's after they spent you know, the very little savings and the very little money they spent a lot of money on on treatment. And you know, I'm getting the water almost look like you know, fresh water that you would use for irrigation of mr. We

take matters into our own hands. Our group of farmers living around this irrigation canal, collect money from each other, clean the canal and remove the drainage from it. Then we use the water to grow acrops. Do people like him have faith in the Egyptian government to address this? Obviously the country is suffering quite a bit, so it is unauthorized. You have to get up an an authorization to be able to protest. And at the same time,

especially in marginalized areas like bald Team. Weald Team is, like I said, the furthest point of the delta line, so the services is not as good as further down on the delta line. So these people. They lack government services, and the government at the same time is railing from the effect of the war in Ukraine and before the pandemic, and there's not enough finances. And that's why you see you here all the time, the calls to get finances.

And for even farmers that I spoke to in this very distant village, they were saying they hope that COP seven they will be able to get like finance and funding for the lands because they need it and because the government cannot afford that. So even these farmers who live far away from where government leaders around the world, they're discussing this question. Even they are aware of CAP twenty seven, are actually looking to it to see if something will be done. Yes, yes, I was fascinated. Like

they're following the news. They know about it very well. Some of them are obviously cynical, but a lot of them is following it and they hope that it's going to affect their lives and it's going to avail funds that they need, the urgently need to save the lands and save the and feed them basically feed the kids. If you look down the road five years or ten years from now, Um, what will happen to agriculture if nothing is done to can slow the pace of climate

change on the Nile. So again the problem in ease of is that the countries is very dependent on the Nine River and the farming and irrigation is about fresh water comes from the river rather than the rainfall as the case in other countries. So this is now contributing to make an age of even more vulnerable to climate change due to its primary in the dependence on the Nile,

and that's effecting everything. Yields for for food crops are projected to decline due to higher temperature and water stress and increased salinity of irrigation water, which means more exports, which means more pressure on the country's finances and budgets. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me, Sugar. Thank you. After the break, my conversation with Laura Milan continues and we're going to explore some possible solutions to

the climb the crisis Lavera. So we're just listening to some people in Egypt who are suffering the effects of what's happening from climate change right now, seeing what's happening when the Nile is greatly affected and makes it harder to plant crops and just harder to go about daily life. When you look at what's happening in a country like Egypt, which is not a big contributor to climate change, but

is suffering the results from other nations. Really, what are we seeing in the cop Climate Conference world among these people who study this all the time about the responsibility of larger nations too smaller nations to try to reduce

the effects. Well, that's actually going to be one of the main themes at coptal TO seventh conference this year, partly because, like you say, it's a big issue, but also because the conference is happening in Africa for the first time in a few years, and that always means

that these sort of issues have a bigger presence. What's happening and what the ve it is about is that developing nations have not emitted historically as many emissions, nearly as many emissions as developed nations as rich nations, so they have contributed comparatively very little to the warming of the planet, and yet they're bearing the consequences of that

warming disproportionately. These countries are seeking compensation from return nations and help when it comes to facing these terrible consequences, will those nations actually pay out? Because there was supposed to be a big payout from return nations to less wealthy nations for exactly this purpose, and they can never

paid right. I think what you're referring to is the a promise of hundred billion dollar per year of climate finance to the developing nations, and that PLEDs that was signed at the copy in Copenhagen has never been fulfilled. Developing countries are asking that that is fulfilled. That as a starting point, but actually calculations from experts and scientists say that developing nations actually need much more money to recover from the extreme weather events that are suffering because

of climate change. It is unlikely that developed nations come out of this cop happy. Hopefully some sort of agreements, some sort of mechanism will be agreed upon. And what are some of those things? I mean you talked about

mechanisms that they can put in place. What would they be that developing nations would get from the more developed countries more than around figure what developing nations would be looking for this time is what they call a mechanism, so that means a system by which every time there is an extreme weather event that HiT's a country let's say Pakistan, for examt people, which has terrible slots, then there is a system by which funding can flow very

quickly into the country, because it's been studies say that the faster you react to one of these extreme weather events, the faster you can recover from it. What kind of like we were talking before that you know, climate is at the forefront until immediate concerns wind up superseding them. There's always this kind of tension there between trying to ultimately save the planet from overheating and trying to keep

immediate economic pain from hurting people. And so if you have very high prices for fuel and you have inflation everywhere and people are having a hard time, politicians around the world they're saying, well, I don't know, maybe just temporarily, we're gonna go back to using coal. We're seeing that certainly in China. We're even seeing some politicians in the US saying, no, this is not the time to be

talking about renewable fuels. We need to get people back to work and be able to you know, heat homes. So at what point do you think there's going to be the feeling that when there's a crisis like the one we're in now, politicians say, no, this is the time where we have to say we're gonna take our pain right now in order to invest in clean energy that will get us through it from now. I think

we've already seen this with the coronavirus crisis. So in Europe, all the lockdowns forced governments to basically spend lots of money to try to revive the economy, and they pass huge economic packages, and the European Union made very clear that it wasn't growth or climate it was growth through fighting climate change. What they made was all countries to commit to spending at least a third of European recovery

funds in green policies. I think in a way, countries and envisions are still keeping climate change in mind when it comes to this recovery, to to this economic crisis. The message is that yes, there is a turn to call in some countries to cover these immediate needs. But over the long term, the hope is that the past towards the low emissions economy and towards net zero by

mid century continues. Are there countries in the world that exert more pressure more effectively than others and countries to meet these more ambitious goals. Yes, absolutely so. When we talk about the talks that cop traditionally the US has been obviously as as the world's beecause economy and as the worlds also the world's bigguse emitter, they have had huge weight in these talks. And this changed a bit during a from a president from SPUNDAID because he had

a very different vision on climate. But the US has come back as a leader of these negotiations under President Biden, and we expect them to send a huge delegation to COP and seven putting pressure on other nations to cut coal use specifically, but also to cut greenhouse gas emissions in general. Other key players are the European Union as well. Another interesting player this year will be Australia, which changed

governments in the middle of the year. Other players to watch that are not the typical ones on when we talk about international discussions are the small island nations. So these are really truly at the forefront that that you know, they're battling climate change physically at their homes every day, and we're talking about islands like Barbados and other nations

in the Pacific and in the Caribbean. Leaders from these nations have traditionally been really, really vocal in this forum, and they have compared to the relative size of their economies and their countries, they have a huge weight in these negotiations. Is there a point of no return that the people who think about this study attend these conferences have in mind, where if we don't do something about it, it's just going to be too late. This is an

ongoing debate among scientists. Some scientists will say that we've already reached that point of no return and that all that we are doing now is just avoiding catastrophe. There are people that will say, well, this is true, but still not all is lost. There is time to make things not that, But I personally would like to focus on this glass huffle. Bill Blara, thanks so much for

taking the time talk to me. Thank you so much for having me, Thanks for listening to us here at the Big Take the Daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. From more shows from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Read Today's story and described to our daily newsletter at Bloomberg dot com slash Big Take, and we'd love to hear from you. Email us with questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of

The Big Take is Vicky Burgalina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Our producer is Frederica Romaniello. Our associate producer is zenib Sidiki. Hilda Garcia is our engineer. Original music by Leo Sidrin. If you want to hear more about what's going on at Top, check out our sister podcast. It's called Zero. They're heading to Egypt and they'll be reporting all the latest from the conference. I'm West Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take.