Louise Sallé and AFP
COP27 is coming to an end, and for some it hasn’t helped much. François Gemenne, researcher in geopolitics of the environment, explains to Europe 1 why the discussions only avoid going backwards, and not moving forward, while climate change is accelerating.
COP27, a pretext meeting? While discussions are extended this weekend in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to try to secure progress on financing climate damage and reaffirming ambitions in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, few are optimistic. on the real usefulness of the forum. This is the case of the Belgian François Gemenne. After two weeks of negotiations, the researcher in environmental geopolitics and member of the IPCC is not very optimistic.
“There is no major progress”
“On the question of fossil fuels, on the question of emission reductions, unfortunately, there is no major progress,” he laments. For François Gemenne, the objective of the countries gathered in Egypt is not to move towards more ecological practices, but to consolidate the achievements, which are not really so. “The negotiators’ concern is above all to avoid any significant setback compared to last year’s Glasgow test at COP21, which was itself considered a half disappointment.”
Disappointed, the researcher points to a real dissonance. “It is the tragedy of these negotiations which seem increasingly out of step with reality. Climate change is advancing at a gallop and the negotiations are above all concerned with avoiding backtracking.”
The last Saturday of COP27 was marked by difficult negotiations due to the lack of agreement on several contentious points, to the chagrin of environmental activists and associations such as WWF. “Discussions must intensify quickly,” said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, representative of the association. “We can’t afford to have so many negotiating topics that remain unresolved until the next COP.”