Will Egypt, holding the 'crown' of COP27, deliver? | EP 18

actually save the world? We're here to tell you everything you need to know about cop is Melissa lo she is a research fellow at N. U. S. Center for Nature based Climate Solutions. Melissa is only 35 years old but she has been to 10 previous cop meetings and is attending this year's conference as well. Welcome Melissa. Thanks for having me julie

first things first. What is? So the cop stands for the conference of the parties and this primarily refers to the U. N. Framework convention on Climate change and so parties are meeting for the 27th time this year in Sharm el sheikh Egypt. There's a lot of jargon has been throwing around at cop events but what we Here over and over again is a Paris agreement or Paris accord as I believe was signed back in 2015 on this day. The Paris agreement on climate change enters

into force. Tell us a bit about what it is and why is it still important? The Paris agreement was agreed in December 2015 And what the agreement does it commits all countries to reducing the rise in global temperatures to not beyond 1.5°. I think the amazing thing about the Paris agreement is that it requires all countries unlike its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol.

And I think a lot of countries are extremely confident that the Paris agreement in its current form will take us to where we need to be as long as we put forward the right targets to get there. In fact, the slogan for cop 26 was keeping 1.5 alive. But let's face it melissa, we've been increasingly hearing in how the 1.5 degree target is fast fading away. Do you think it's still a feasible goal? Well, we have to keep our hopes up and absolutely

right. The 1.5 degree window is closing extremely fast and we must do more than what we're already doing. And so the paris agreement, one of the key things about it is also an ambition cycle. So every five years countries need to up their targets, meaning they have to

put forward more ambitious targets. And Singapore has actually submitted a new enhanced target this year and we will be bringing it to the cop 27 I think that countries if they're serious about fighting climate change and addressing its impacts, they will follow this ambition cycle and submit new and better targets every five years goals. A year ago, the country's banks, business leaders announced a slew of climate plans and pledges, how have those big

promises progress since? That's a great question because cop 26 was just last year in November and so were one year in and the world has changed tremendously within this year. And I think one of the biggest worries is what's happening in europe right now. The Russia Ukraine crisis resulting in huge energy crunch. I think a lot of countries that we think might backslide on their targets simply because they're not able to get energy supply for the winter

coming ahead. We haven't really seen great progress in the last one year as countries recover from the covid 19 pandemic, hopefully coming out of it better and stronger. But it's just one crisis after another. Of course remain hopeful and optimistic that we'll get through eventually. But I think this year has just been particularly tough if last year's cop was the commitment cop where climate pledges and

targets were set. Many say that this year is the implementation cop what are the big objectives this time, expectations are really high this year for the cop to deliver On something called mitigation ambition under the mitigation work program. So this is for countries to raise their ambitions before 2030 and why is 2030 important? It's because that's when the first round of nationally determined contributions or climate pledges are due in 2030. There's a big program called the

mitigation work program that will take us there. So countries are going to agree on a process to get us there in 2030

There's also the big issue of loss and damage. So there are a number of developing countries, particularly small islands, that are asking for developed countries to put money towards disaster relief, for loss and damage funding so that they can make peace with some of their losses that are irreparable. And the last issue that is squarely on the table is climate finance countries need To come up with a new floor of at least

us $100 billion 2025 onwards. And we're watching eagerly as to whether that commitment will take place because I think it's really important to build trust and rebuild the trust that perhaps has been lost with the lack of progress in the last year. Who are the leaders that you're most excited to hear from. And I think it's really important that the heads of states of countries that have submitted

new pledges from cop 26. So there are only about 20 countries that have displayed climate leadership before cop 27 of course this includes Egypt the host of the cop 27 this year. Australia Indonesia being the g 20 chair India has also come forward with an updated nationally determined contribute

per the Glasgow climate pack. So I'm really eager to hear what these countries have to say, but also the large emitters like china and the U. S. And of course, I think Singapore will also have a part to play at the cop 27 this year, but we know who won't be attending this year. This is no longer a climate

that we're there. I think what's more important is what we do when we leave the cop the cop is a platform for negotiations is a place where people go and bring their points across, particularly for young people and if Greta thunberg were to attend, she would be able to inspire a lot of people, but I'm sure she just wants to send a very strong message that actually the work needs to be happening on the ground.

Speaking of skeptics, there are those who think cop 27 will likely disappoint, especially with 2022 now being a typical year with recession fears food and energy shortages and the war in Ukraine Melissa, how concerned are you that the level of ambition in Egypt will likely fail to match that in Glasgow

or would the meeting hold more relevance? You're absolutely spot on on that expectations are really high for cop 27 to meet the same level of ambition and goals that the cop 26 presidency put on the table. But let's keep in mind this is an african cop and I think the focus areas are fairly different from what the U. K. Was focusing on and I think the U. K has a different set of clout as well.

Mark Carney was special rap and I believe he managed to bring big banks to commit to net zero finance as well. I think it's important to know what each court presidency brings to the table and what they can do at each cop and certainly I feel that if cop 27 were to be a success, it would deliver on adaptation and loss and damage as well as climate finance. I believe that cop 26 played a role in driving the

interest among non party stakeholders. So beyond government. So we have a lot of said the private sector joining us at cop 26 but I think we'll see a different set of participants attending cop 27 because they want to drive resilience, they want to drive loss and damage payments. And I think all of these views are very valid and we have to

hear them out and there's something at the court. We call procedural justice where you have to afford countries and voices to be heard Even if the outcome and the outcome will be a form of compromise. At least people feel they've been given a platform to talk about these important issues and work towards an end goal. So where do you expect the most struggle? The last cop 26 got extended for a couple of days. Is that something that you expect a

cop 27 as well. Yes. The interesting thing about the cop is that there is a phrase that uses nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. So it's a package deal if you will and there are many different tracks of negotiations happening at the cop at any one point in time

is extremely confusing. You have to track different agendas and basically what happens in the end is a package of decisions are put forward to the ministers when they arrive in the sec week and the ministers will go and evaluate based on their own countries interest, but also in the global interest and they will decide on some trade offs. And I think everybody leaves the car a little bit unhappy because if we left extremely happy, we've done something completely wrong

for the climate. So everybody leaves a bit unhappy because it means that we have to make some cuts and some changes to our behavior. I think where the most contention will happen is the adaptation and loss and damage and loss and damage is particularly challenging because my sense is that if developed countries end up committing to this loss and damage funding, it would perhaps mean

that they've essentially admitted that they've caused climate change. And I think that's something really difficult for them to admit at the cop level. Perhaps they might give some money elsewhere. Denmark for instance, announced it would commit something like 100 million danish kroner in september this year to loss and damage. So that's happening outside of the cop and Scotland and Belgium have also individually pledged money to help countries offset the damage that have been caused

by climate change. And in some cases this damage is irreversible. And so how do we see an outcome where countries don't feel like they have to admit to that responsibility and then we should be solutions oriented rather than problem oriented when we go to the cops Keep listening as I'll be posing more climate-related questions to Melissa, some of which have been asked by our followers on

social media. Alright Melissa, there are some of the questions are followers have posed for you and I feel like no one can answer this first question better than you since you've been to cop 10 times. So for those of us who have never been to cop, what's it like? It must be pretty intense. It is and it's extremely overwhelming. It's your first cop

and I know it's your first cop. So when you go there okay, first thing you have to wear comfortable shoes because the court venue is massive and you have to walk to different places in your case, it will be the media area, but you also want to perhaps attend some negotiations like plenary sessions, I'm considered an observer to the cop. So the National University of Singapore has been accredited since

2014 as an official observer. What we do is we get a yellow batch and so the different badges of the cops allows you into different rooms and for observers, we get to go into some of the smaller rooms. As long as countries decide that they will allow observers in the room for transparency were allowed to sit in for and listen to the news and quite often we take notes so that we can

make sense of it a bit later. There are also a lot of side events that you can attend at the copies are basically like seminar style events that you can go listen to interesting speakers and then their pavilions that countries set up to showcase the important policies and work that they've been doing and perhaps to drive partnerships as well.

And that's actually what I'm most looking forward to is the number of people going from Singapore this year has increased because this is the first time Singapore will be hosting a pavilion at the cop. So the cop is really like a big expo almost right. But it's very serious because negotiations affect lives negotiations affect the trajectory of

our emissions. Ultimately, when it comes to climate change, what's one thing to look out for a cop that may many of us don't know about fossil of the day is an award that young people come together and give out at the end of each day at six o'clock. It's very entertaining because they sing the Jurassic theme park song,

Somebody dresses up as a T rex. And you know, when it happens because it draws a very large crowd essentially is a form of a demonstration where young people will award a fossil to the top three countries that have displayed some form of frustrating behavior at the cop. The country will be given a fossil that day at the end of the two weeks there will be a big fossil colossal fossils. Sometimes we call it. It's quite an entertaining demonstration by youth. It reflects how closely they tracked

the negotiations. So I think all countries are usually quite on guard because they worry that they become a fossil. Right? That's one of the fun side of cop that those of us who have been many years we look forward to very much because it's hard to deal with climate change. I think we just need a little bit of comic relief every now and then. Why is Egypt hosting cop 27 so controversial. There have been a lot of news reports about how Egypt is organizing this cop.

Some have observed that number one sham el Sheikh is not the easiest place to get to. It's a resort town. It's really expensive for a lot of observers. And the second thing is it appears that Egypt is also clamping down on activists. They're not allowing activists to attend the cop. Some observers have shared that they don't think that this cop will have that procedural justice providing the platform for youth voices and strong activist voices.

And I think interestingly enough this is the first african cop since cop 22 which was held in marrakech in Morocco in 2016. The year after the paris agreement was adopted. And that last cop was also very exciting and interesting because it was the U. S. Election that year in 2016 and president trump actually became president while we were in marrakech which set a different tone all together when

we were there. So this particular cop I hope it's not too controversial but it's a cop that has experienced a lot of changes in the last year. So again because of the high prices because of the activism clamped down. It seems I think these have shown a not so great light on the presidency. The U. N. F triple C. Executive secretary Patricia espinosa has stepped down after six years as the chief of the U. N. Framework Convention on climate change. And so this year is a transition year.

So we have a new successor to the U. N. F. C. C. C. Executive secretary is Simon style from Granada and he was just appointed in august this year. It remains to be seen how effective he will be in steering the cop

and the outcomes this year. And I think we also have interesting look ahead because it's been announced already that cop 28 will be held in U. A. E. So one of my biggest worries is that because we already know where the next cop is going to be and when it's going to happen that countries might feel like oh then let's like forward stuff to next year. But I hope they don't do that of course who gets to decide which country gets to be the next presidency.

It rotates among the five regions in the world. So there's europe there's Asia the Middle East and the Americas and so on. Any given country can offer to host the cop. I like to liken the cop presidency to something like the miss universe. When you are the presidency, you have to hold it until you hand over the torch to the next person genuinely feel a little bit sorry for the UK because

they've been holding this torch for so long. The cop 26 was actually postponed in 2020 because of the pandemic. They haven't had an easy task but I think handing it over will be a big relief to them Up next. You'll hear what Melissa thinks cop 27 means for Singapore and what role the country is expected to play at the climate conference. Hi, I'm Adrian Tan and I'm Christina robert. We are

the host of a new podcast called working. We're here to get into the essential things that no one tells you about working in company culture from office politics to dealing with burnout. If you've ever wanted to eavesdrop on an interesting conversation by the water cooler. This podcast is for you look out for our episodes wherever you get your podcast. So melissa, let's talk about what cop 27 means for Singapore. What role the country is expected to play at the

climate conference. Singapore is expected to submit enhanced carbon emission goals at cop 27. Given that it's a country that contributes about 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, new climate emissions at cop 27 mean anything absolutely 0.1% of emissions really isn't very much in the global scheme of things. But of course, I

think it's important that we play our part. We strongly believe here in Singapore in the multilateral rules based process that is these U. N. Negotiations and so therefore we must play an active role if we want to be seen as it's incredible negotiating party by submitting our enhanced target this year as per the Glasgow Climate Pact and what it called for countries to revisit and strengthen its targets. I think put Singapore in a really good position to encourage

nudge other parties who haven't done so yet. You would have heard that D P. M. Lawrence Wong at the opening of the Singapore International Energy Week announced Singapore's revision of our NBC, which is now a fixed Level target of 60 million tons of emissions in 2030. Of course, he also mentioned that we will peak

emissions development strategies. And in 2020 Singapore actually was fairly noncommittal about this. We said we can achieve net zero if the technology is viable by the end of the century, there's a bit more pressure because more and more countries up in that net zero targets right? There are about 53 countries now that have targets by 2050 and most

of them are net zero. And so Singapore felt that we needed to re look at this and because of the Article six or international carbon markets that were finalized, the rules were finalized last year, cop 26 as well as two sets of technologies, Carbon capture storage and utilization as well as hydrogen. It now looks as if Singapore can at least make a strong effort to achieve net zero. Once we exhaust the mitigation options, we might buy carbon credits through the international

frameworks to get to zero in 2050. But I think the key really is to try and mitigate as de carbonized as much as possible before that.

And like I said, I think Singapore will play, in my opinion, we often play an outsized role at the cops because we make effort to understand other countries interests at the court meetings and were sometimes described as an honest broker or facilitator of outcomes because we can think of solutions that might be a bit more palatable or appealing to a variety of country.

For example, Minister graceful last year was asked to co facilitate article six negotiations which were really contentious and we did a great job. So I think we have track record and I think we'll be called upon again. There will be plenty of issues and negotiations that's going to take place at cop 27. But is there anything in particular that would matter for Singapore specifically and also for those of us in the region? What should we keep a lookout for? Well, I think everything

is important. I know that's not the right answer but I think everything is really important because of the package deal. Everything is interconnected. If we dropped the ball on for example adaptation and loss and damage which is really important to a large number of developing least developed countries, then we really haven't won even if Singapore other countries got what they wanted. The world suffers planet suffers a really key outcome for

us not just in Singapore but also the region. Singapore being in Southeast Asia is adaptation is lost and damaged. Many of our neighboring countries have many people living along the coastlines and we've already seen some terrible effects of climate change. I think Philippines is a good example every year during the cop is typhoon season. It hits home because our Philippine negotiators will be at the cop and there'll be sometimes in tears you just

feel for them. You want to do something about it. So I think it's important to situate ourselves as Singaporeans within the larger context of the region and also the world, we can't say to have one if one thing or the other doesn't get agreed. So what do you yourself hope to see a cop 27 and what would make it a successful outcome in your eyes?

That's a tough question. A lot of hopes are on the adaptation and loss and damage agenda item, but I think personally that the mitigation work program is also important. Climate finance delivery is going to be key in order to get to a successful outcome. Perhaps that trust has to be rebuilt and where better to do this and in africa. All right, Mel, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed talking to you. You're welcome julie.

Well hopefully countries can put political differences aside and come together to address a common existential threat. It's a difficult task for sure. But if the hope and optimism of people like melissa is anything to go by, we may still have a chance. The team behind the climate conversations is Jacqueline chan Joanne chan Danieli Christina robert and me julie, you do like and subscribe to this podcast so you can catch the next episode. Thank you for listening. Bye for now