We are about to close the live blog. Thank you for following developments here in Sharm el-Sheikh during the first week of Cop27.
These are the highlights from today:
Russian oligarchs and executives from multiple companies under international sanctions are among the lobbyists attending Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.
US climate envoy, John Kerry, said his country was “totally supportive” of moves to address loss and damage, one of the most contentious issues at these talks, and “100% ready” to discuss the issue in detail.
Mexico has announced an improved greenhouse gas emissions target, though it is still far short of what is needed, according to activists.
A demonstration by a few hundred protesters was permitted inside the Cop27 venue in Egypt although they have not been allowed to march en masse in the streets.
The four Indigenous and youth activists from the US who briefly interrupted Joe Biden’s speech yesterday with a war cry and banner have had their Cop accreditation revoked.
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Kiribati president: we need money to physically raise our islands
There are few countries more in the crosshairs of the climate crisis than Kiribati – a small, low-lying island nation in the Pacific Ocean that has struggled to get the help it needs from wealthy countries to avoid being submerged by the seas.
Its president, Taneti Maamau, has an audacious plan to physically raise the islands to protect them but this will take billions of dollars and rich countries have been slow to respond with climate finance, he said.
“They have to honour their commitments and pledges,” he said of developed countries. “They need to open their ears more clearly, and their minds. They know what the issues are but I don’t know what is holding them up.”
Maamau said he listened to Joe Biden vowing to act on the climate crisis at Cop27 but said: “I don’t know if the same voice will hang on for the next four or five years. It’s midterm elections in the US.”
“They should act, because time is short for us,” he added. “Some prefer to negotiate but we say no, it’s time for action. We demand action now. For too long we have waited and waited. It’s not fair.”
Caught up with Taneti Maamau, president of Kiribati, about loss and damage and his plan to physically raise the islands to save them.
— Oliver Milman (@olliemilman) November 12, 2022
Wealthy countries “should act because time is short for us. It’s time for action, for too long we have waited and waited.” pic.twitter.com/wUYbqfy1hQ
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As food day continues, you’ll be hard pushed to attend an event without hearing buzz phrases such as “equitable transition”, “soil health” and “regenerative farming”. But in reality, two conflicting visions for food systems are unfolding at Cop27 on agriculture day.
In the negotiating rooms, the agenda is mostly focussed on making industrialised agriculture bigger and better, which means more public-private support for fossil fuel fertilisers and tech solutions for climate resilience. This is also the narrative at the Food Systems Pavilion, where green fertiliser, carbon mapping and carbon markets, and methane reducing additives were among the innovations discussed during today’s climate resilient panels.
In a Dragon’s Den inspired event, judges heard pitches from climate tech entrepreneurs whose ideas included a digital app connecting subsistence farmers with suppliers, a roadmap for “sustainable fertliser” in Africa as an emergency response to food insecurity, and satellite mapping to guide pastoralists.
Earlier in a decarbonisation panel, Rob Cameron, the global head of public affairs at Nestlé, the world largest food and drinks company, said the firm had developed its own regenerative agriculture model. “We’re on it because we need to move fast. It’s good that others are moving slowly and consulting with Indigenous people and small farmers … eventually we will converge,” said Cameron. Nestle, which has pledged to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, last year generated almost as many greenhouse gases as Nigeria.
Betty Chinyamunyamu, the CEO of the national smallholder farmers association in Malawi, told Cameron that farmers were part of the solution, and should not just be considered as recipients. “We need more collaboration and mutual benefits. Everyone must be a winner, there should not be winners and losers.”
After running through three buildings, getting lost and tripping up, the Guardian made it to the Food4Climate pavilion where the vision is about transformation, sustainable, healthy food systems and agroecological farming as an alternative to the current industrial system. A two-hour panel discussion on subsidies is a hard sell at this stage of the week, but it’s what’s propping up the fragile global food system that is failing on the environment, food security, human health and animal welfare, according to the panellists.
Here are a couple of jaw dropping stats: about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the food system – 71% of those are down to agriculture and land use change (deforestation, fertilisers, methane emissions). Subsidies play a major role in deciding what and how food is produced, yet at least 90% of the $540bn in global food subsidies have been deemed harmful to the planet, according to UN research.
Much of the world’s population is either undernourished or overweight, signalling that we’re not producing or eating well. “Subsidies are a major change agent. They make it hard for farmers to make changes, and stop consumer driven market changes from naturally taking place. This is not a level playing field,” said Stephanie Haszczyn from the Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return (FAIRR) initiative.
Subsidies are not on the Cop agenda, but they should be, said Patty Fong from the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. “Farmers are locked into an industrialised system and can’t get out of it. We are eroding sophisticated traditional knowledge about Indigenous varieties and weakening community resilience. Neither farmers nor consumers are benefiting.”
One more shocking food fact to finish with: despite the climate crisis already battering food supplies, only 3% of public climate finance has so far gone to food, and today’s announcements suggest that much of the new money coming out of Cop27 will be from the private sector.
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US "100% ready" to discuss loss an damage - Kerry
John Kerry said the US was “totally supportive” of moves to address loss and damage, one of the most contentious issues at these talks, and “100% ready” to discuss the issue in detail.
“We have engaged with our friends to work through the proposals,” he told a press conference at Cop27 on Saturday. “We want to engage.”
He said that Joe Biden, who visited the talks briefly on Friday, was also supportive. “We are 100% ready, [the president] has said, to discuss the issue of loss and damage. That’s why it’s on the agenda. We want to come to closure.”
Loss and damage refers to the impacts of extreme weather so severe that countries cannot adapt to them, and the negotiations revolve around how to provide financial assistance for developing countries afflicted by extreme weather, which can destroy their infrastructure and tear apart their social fabric.
Discussions of loss and damage as “compensation” to developing countries from the rich, or “liability” on the part of developed countries, as some activists have sought to frame the issue, are specifically excluded from the negotiations, and have been since the 2015 Paris agreement.
Asked by the Guardian when the US would start paying into a finance facility for loss and damage, and whether China should also pay into such a facility, Kerry said: “It’s not fully defined, what is a facility. There are all kinds of different views on what it could be. No one can sign up to something on it, not yet … We are not at the [financial] facility discussions yet.”
He added: “But we want to engage on something very real.” On the issue of whether China, whose emissions are far larger than any other developing country, should pay for loss and damage in the poorest nations, he did not name China but referred to such countries indirectly. “There are a whole bunch of countries that have also contributed to where we are, so how do we manage that?”
He went on: “What we want to make sure is that we come up with something that satisfies people who are serious, and that we will come out with an agreement [in which] we are confident what the financial arrangements should be.”
He pledged: “We will find a way to have financial arrangements that reflect the reality of how we are all going to deal with the climate crisis. That’s what this is all about.”
Kerry also sought to reassure those concerned that countries were backsliding this year from commitments made at Cop26 in Glasgow to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. “[Sameh] Shoukry [the Egyptian foreign minister who is president of the talks] does not intend to be the country that hosts a retreat from what was achieved in Glasgow,” he said. “Most countries here have no intention of going backwards.”
But he said countries that had not set out plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 in line with the 1.5C temperature limit agreed in Glasgow. He did not name the countries he meant.
On the question of US relations with China, he said there had been informal discussions between the countries at Cop27, but no formal meetings. Joe Biden is expected to meet the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, next week when the G20 meet in Bali from Tuesday. Kerry added: “[We are] waiting to see how things go at the G20.”
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Half time reports
Thank to you everyone who has sent through their half time reports on Cop27. Please continue to send comments and questions to @pgreenfielduk on Twitter or patrick.greenfield@theguardian.com.
Fanny Petitbon from the NGO CARE France told our environment editor, Damian Carrington, that negotiators must reach an agreement with substance on loss and damage, a key point of division between countries in week one at Cop27.
Now that we have a foot in the door, we must smash it open and secure a loss and damage finance facility [and] deliver critical support for populations who bear the brunt of climate impacts, especially women and girls in the global south. The time for endless talking is over.
Kate Norgrove from WWF UK says that the climate summit has produced little so far and that governments are not taking the necessary action on global heating.
So far sadly all we have seen is woeful inaction on net zero and protecting the planet. We are deeply concerned by slow progress at the summit in agreeing the future of [action] on agriculture. Our food system contributes around one third of greenhouse gas emissions and is also the number one cause of biodiversity loss – it cannot be kicked into the long grass any longer.
On agriculture day at Cop27, several people said that governments needed to do more on farming reform, referencing the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture, a UN decision that highlights the potential of farming to help tackle global heating.
#COP27 must accelerate the transition to more sustainable, equitable and resilient food systems.
— Food and Land Use Coalition (@FOLUCoalition) November 12, 2022
Leaving #Koronivia on the backburner any longer will lock in instability for years to come #TogetherForImplementation
Food needs to be higher up on the agenda! The #Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture must be accelerated - we demand that member states come to an agreement ASAP. A 3 year delay is unacceptable. @FOLUCoalition
— World Food Forum (@World_FoodForum) November 12, 2022
While in the conference venue, IUCN press officer Matthias Fiechter and Christina Isherwood would like to see the Cop27 organisers make it slightly warmer. Although we are in the middle of the desert, it gets cold inside the pavilions, especially in the afternoon and evening.
The need to turn down air conditioning? Both a waste of energy and a source of discomfort!
— Matthias Fiechter (@MatthiasFi) November 12, 2022
I agree air conditioning can be draughty. I was subject to it blasting in my direction whilst at work and the following day had a very sore throat and was unwell for a week afterwards.
— Christina Isherwood (@ChristinaIsher3) November 12, 2022
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Back in the UK, the debate over windfall taxes on oil and gas companies – which have been posting record profits since the war in Ukraine broke out – rages on.
The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has been briefing to the press that the government has decided to raise the windfall tax on fossil fuel companies to 35%.
Currently, the UK government has put an extra levy of 25% on the firms, on top of the existing 40% tax, bringing the total tax to 65%. The rise would bring it up to 75%.
Though raising the levy by 10% would be welcomed by green groups, it still does not go as far as the oil and gas super-producer Norway, which has an overall levy of 78%.
The thinktank Green Alliance previously worked out that hiking up our tax to meet Norway’s could raise £33.3bn extra by 2027, plugging a hole in government finances and helping keep energy bills low.
However, the idea has clearly triggered the fossil fuel companies, who call the proposed levy – which would still be below other country’s including Norway’s – a “supertax”.
Offsure Energy UK, which represents the oil and gas companies, has said they would be “driven out” of investing in the UK if the tax was raised, and accused Hunt of “threatening” them.
A spokesperson said: “We’re completely taken aback by this, coming just days before the chancellor gives his fiscal statement. Our industry plays a critical role in providing reliable and responsible supplies of energy to the UK, with all the benefits that brings in generating taxes, secure energy and jobs for UK workers.”
However, these complaints could be regarded as slightly empty, as there is a sunset clause on the windfall tax of 2025, and there is a loophole which allows companies to claim back tax if they invest in the UK. This meant that Shell, for example, paid no windfall tax.
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'The legitimacy of the loss and damage has never been as high' - Johan Rockström
It’s half-time at Cop27, so to get some thoughts on how it is going so far, I caught up with Prof Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who has been attending Cops for almost 20 years.
“I came into this Cop with very low expectations,” he said. “We’re at an all-time low on trust” between nations, he said, due to geopolitical tensions, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the energy price crisis, economic gloom and politicians backing off from climate action, for example, in his native Sweden.
The issue of loss and damage, the compensation demanded by poor nations for climate destruction, is prominent at Cop27, but has long been divisive. “The global north and the global south have very big difficulties in coming to a consensus on how to handle it. But, for every year that passes and emissions rise further, climate extremes get worse and worse,” he said.
Scientists can now rapidly attribute the influence of global heating to more severe and frequent climate disasters, Rockström noted: “So the legitimacy of the loss and damage has never been as high as today.”
But Cop27 has gone better than he expected: “I’ve been positively surprised that so many heads of state have come to COP, such as President Biden. That in itself is a truly important thing, as it shows the climate transition has passed the [political] tipping point. We are at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel-driven world economy. There’s no going back any more. The question is will we do it fast enough?”
He is also relieved that “nothing has blown up so far”.
“I remember at the halfway point in Paris [in 2015], the 2C was off the table. The fear was also that this would be a Cop where all civil society would be shut out and the youth would have no voice, but it isn’t.”
Looking forward, Rockström spelled out the outcomes he was hoping for by the end of Cop27. “Number one is that we come to a settlement on loss and damage, with the constructive countries in the north giving enough to the most vulnerable developing countries, so everyone feels they leave with a reassurance we are taking things seriously.”
He said there also needed to be significant progress on commitments to cutting emissions, by the ratcheting up of the pledges that most countries were meant to have already done by Cop27: “It’s so we can come back towards a feasible plan to hold to the 1.5C target.”
Lastly was the money, Rockström said. “We need to have a serious discussion on how we can start scaling carbon pricing markets and use this to raise the possibility of filling up the funds.” The $100m by 2020 first promised by rich nations in 2009 has yet to be delivered, with the US, Canada, Australia and the UK billions short of their “fair share”, and very little pledged to loss and damage.
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Marina Silva, who was Brazil’s environment minister under Lula’s first presidency during which there was a large drop in deforestation in the Amazon, has been speaking with reporters at Cop27.
She said it was not going to be easy to slow deforestation rates in the world’s largest tropical rainforest, especially as many of the people that could help do so were under threat by the current government.
Lula’s government is determined to implement policies aimed at rigorously combating deforestation. The goal is to fight all criminal practices to achieve zero deforestation in all Brazilian biomes. A very big concern is what is happening now in the Amazon. It’s not an easy process. There was a dismantling of all environmental policies, but we believe that by rearranging the budget, the teams on ground resuming the plan, which has already worked in the past and reduced deforestation by 83% in almost a decade, and updating these policies we are going to achieve a good result.
Fantastic to speak with Marina Silva at #Cop27 earlier today. She was environment minister when Lula was president in the 00s, overseeing a massive drop in deforestation in the Amazon.
— Patrick Greenfield (@pgreenfielduk) November 12, 2022
A repeat “won’t be easy”, she warned. pic.twitter.com/Xo4fKcIRd8
The incoming Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is set to attend Cop27 next week, with the transition of power under way from the outgoing far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro.
Silva discussed a proposed alliance of rainforest countries, which would include Indonesia and the DR Congo, saying she wanted to help protect the world’s forests, not just Brazil’s.
Brazil won’t make money a condition for protecting its forests [under Lula]. That is a difference between us and the previous government’s approach. The previous government always said that “to protect the forests, the native peoples, we must be paid”. Brazil has already shown that it can [stop deforestation] with its own efforts. We want partnerships, we want cooperation, to develop the bioeconomy in the area of science, technology … We are not doing this with conditions. But we think that countries that are middle- and low-income countries need [more money], and Brazil will be committed to seeking these resources and without the anxiety of wanting to compete for these resources.
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Russian oligarchs and lobbyists from sanctioned companies at Cop27
Russian oligarchs and executives from multiple companies under international sanctions are among the lobbyists currently attending Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, reports the Guardian’s Ruth Michaelson.
Among those at the pivotal climate talks are the billionaire and former aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, who is under UK sanctions, and the billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, the former head of the Russian fertiliser company the EuroChem group, who has been targeted with individual sanctions by the European Union which he disputed, calling them “absurd and nonsensical”.
Gas giant Gazprom, currently under American and EU sanctions, has sent six delegates to the crucial climate talks, alongside the managing director of Sberbank, which is also facing sanctions in Washington and Brussels. Representatives from oil company Lukoil, mining company Severstal, and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works are also in attendance, all of which are also currently under US sanctions.
The Gas giant Gazprom has sent six delegates to the talks, alongside the managing director of Sberbank. Both are under US and EU sanctions. Representatives from the oil company Lukoil, the mining company Severstal, and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works are also in attendance, all of which are under US sanctions.
You can read the full report below.
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Hello readers, I am taking over from Alan until the end of the day. It’s the end of a busy first week here in Egypt.
Please send comments and questions to @pgreenfielduk on Twitter or patrick.greenfield@theguardian.com. We are keen to get your halftime reports on how you think Cop27 is going and your hopes for week two. Thanks!
We are halfway through #COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.
— Patrick Greenfield (@pgreenfielduk) November 12, 2022
Please tweet me, @itsalanevans & @guardianeco your thoughts for the Guardian live blog. We will post them throughout the day!
Thanks
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Patricia Espinosa, the UNFCCC executive secretary from 2016 to 2022, isn’t just here attending events, she’s also promoting her new consultancy firm OnePoint5 – a reference to the temperature rise target that seems increasingly hopeless given the 1% rise in global emissions last year, and the seemingly unabated investment in new fossil fuels projects.
Espinosa is more hopeful: “I think that the science is very clear, we need to aim at 1.5, and we have examples that it is feasible and people are committing. I was just at the UAE pavilion, where the minister launched the pathway for net zero with a specific commitment by 2030, 2040 and 2050, so it can be done.”
The UAE, which will host Cop28, has 70 oil and gas representatives among its delegation including three fossil fuel CEOs. Scientists agree that rapidly slashing fossil fuels is the only way to keep hopes of 1.5 alive. “We need to have those industries also on board,” said Espinosa. Not everyone agrees. “Climate criminals should not be in this space deciding the solutions,” said Aderonke Ige, associate director of Corporate Accountability.
At the end of the first week, it’s clear that climate activists are furious at the UNFCCC allowing polluters – fossil fuel companies, banks that enable them and Big Ag that relies on them – to be omnipresent in Cop spaces while frontline communities and small scale farmers are not only largely absent from the formal talks, but struggle to even get access to the summit.
The Guardian asked Espinosa if Cop had become too corporate: “If you look at the fact that we really need every company in the world to change, I wouldn’t say so. And actually, I hope that they go faster and push the governments in the right direction. I think they are also realising that they’re the survival of their business.”
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Tzeporah Berman, who is heading the push for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty (see 9.44am), has tweeted pictures of the towel art she has been returning to at her hotel after the conference each night:
Hotel towel art. Can’t decide whether this is charming or creepy but it’s something to come back to every night. #cop27 pic.twitter.com/iLvZ1a5qlm
— Tzeporah Berman (@Tzeporah) November 11, 2022
Gökçe Mete, another delegate, responded with an image of more towel art from what looks like a different hotel.
Certainly something to look forward to! Here is my favourite from my stay 🤓 pic.twitter.com/dcfL9V5MQf
— Gokce Mete (@GokceMe) November 12, 2022
Mexico improves climate targets
Mexico has announced an improved greenhouse gas emissions target, though it is still far short of what is needed, activists have said.
Here’s the Associated Press’s report:
Mexico announced on Saturday it is raising its target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and boosting the rollout of renewable energy, though it remains a regional laggard on climate action.
Foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard said Mexico would aim to reduce emissions by 35% compared with doing nothing by 2030. That’s up from an unconditional pledge of 22% cuts it had made two years ago.
To achieve this goal, Mexico will double its investments in clean energy over the next eight years, expand protected forest areas, boost electric car use and reduce methane emissions from its natural gas industry.
Unlike many national climate targets, Mexico’s does not define cuts in relation to a specific baseline year but compared to what’s project under a “business as usual” scenario.
My colleague Nina Lakhani wrote earlier this week about Mexico’s inadequate carbon pledges and the regressive policies of president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Read more here:
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Protests inside the venue
A demonstration by a few hundred protesters has been permitted inside the Cop27 venue here in Egypt – they have not been allowed to march en masse in the streets.
Speakers raised loss and damage, the compensation poor nations are demanding for climate destruction, the rights of women and children, and of political prisoners. The speakers were introduced by a campaigner wearing a “Free Alaa” T-shirt, in support of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian citizen on hunger strike in an Egyptian jail.
“We are not silenced – we are unheard,” said Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a climate activist from the Philippines. She also raised the failure of rich, polluting nations to pay for loss and damages: “This is their debt to us and they have to pay it to us.”
“You will never get rid of us,” said another speaker. “We will get stronger and, when we are gone, our children will replace us.”
Placards in the crowd included “Pay your climate debt”, “Don’t gas Africa”, “Trade unions 4 just transition”, “Reparations for damage to water” and “Women of the territories are healers of the Earth”. The chants taken up by the crowd covered “The people united will never be defeated” and, referencing political prisoners, “Free them all”.
Sinéad Magner, 28, from Tipperary in the Republic of Ireland, is part of the women and gender constituency, a group of NGOs. “Right now we are destroying nature in the relentless pursuit of profit, but also on the backs of women,” she said. Unpaid work by women in farming, caring and elsewhere is worth $11tn a year, she said.
Magner said it felt powerful to joining with activists at Cop, but said the summit was becoming “a circus, like a business expo”. She said: “People are losing faith in the process.”
I am at the #cop27 protest inside the summit
— Damian Carrington (@dpcarrington) November 12, 2022
@mitzijonelle spotlighting the murder and imprisonment of environmental land defenders pic.twitter.com/IYX9rvZtHv
More scenes from the noisy protest inside #cop27 summit
— Damian Carrington (@dpcarrington) November 12, 2022
The campaigners have not been allowed to march in the streets pic.twitter.com/pzrSoT1XXh
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"I am a vegan who loves the taste of meat” - Guardian editor tries cultivated chicken
It is food day at Cop27 and it is clear from the science that the climate crisis cannot be ended without a big cut in meat eating in rich nations. I’ve written a lot on the huge damage meat production causes, and about going vegan as a result. But now I have eaten meat for the first time in four years – cultivated meat.
The Singaporean clay pot in front me looks appetising – it may also be a glimpse of the future. The “whole chicken pieces” are Good Meat’s latest innovation, grown from cells in a food facility and requiring the slaughter of no birds.
It is my first taste of cultivated meat and I am a little nervous. I’ve lost the taste for dairy milk and fish since going vegan. But the smell from the little barbecue is encouraging – I’ve missed barbecues.
The chicken pieces are served with sautéed mushrooms, broccoli and rice, with a little chilli, a deliberately simple dish. “We are not trying to hide behind anything,” says chef Chris Jones. He wants the meat to be the focus when people try it for the first time.
So what is it like? The first thing I notice is the texture, firm and with proper bite, a little crispy on the outside. The flavour is authentically chicken, subtle but unmistakable. In both respects, it is far superior to the various plant-based chickens I have tried. They have all been perfectly palatable, but wouldn’t fool a carnivore.
The chicken tastes like thigh meat, more flavoursome and moist than breast meat, and that’s not an accident. “It’s a better flavour profile,” says Jones, who works in product development for Good Meat, and says it cooks just like regular chicken.
The promise of cultivated meat is that it can provide a no-compromise alternative to regular meat, without the vast environmental damage. “We are really proud of this chicken,” says Jones. But we always want feedback and are looking to make it better, he tells me. My feedback is simple: get the scale up, the price down, and get it on to more plates.
Good Meat was the first company to sell cultivated meat to the public, in Singapore. The company matches the price of their meat with regular meat for Singapore restaurants and food shacks, which means taking a loss.
“We are not making money on it at the moment,” says Andrew Noyes, who head global communications at Good Meat. “But it is important to get it out there and into people’s mouths, and get them talking to their friends and families.” He says the key will be getting regular people, like the ones he grew up with in rural West Virginia, to eat cultivated meat.
The company is building the world’s largest vats for cultivated meat and is in the process of getting regulatory approval in the US and Qatar. The latter, like Singapore, is very reliant on food imports, making the small footprint of cultivated meat attractive. Cultivated beef is next in the product pipeline, Noyes says, and Israeli firm Aleph Farms just debuted its cultivated steak.
In the UK, the chicken pieces I was served would be called goujons, and they are the third generation of the product that first went on sale in Singapore as a chicken nugget. They are 75% meat and 25% proprietary plant protein mix, as per the regulatory approval.
I am the first to try them at Cop27 – the “guinea pig”, Jones jokes – but delegates will be served the chicken across this weekend, culminating with a ministerial dinner on Monday.
One issue with cultivated meat has been the use of a serum from cow foetuses in the cell growth medium. Noyes says they now use an animal-free serum in research and development, and will make the switch in Singapore when approved by regulators.
As I leave, I bump into Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, Good Meat’s parent company – he has just arrived at Cop27. “I am a vegan who loves the taste of meat,” he tells me. It turns out, so am I.
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After six years as the big cheese of UN climate negotiations, Patricia Espinosa has been enjoying walking the halls of power not quite as an ordinary Joe and apparently isn’t closely following the negotiations. “It has felt just amazing. I knew that as the [UNFCCC] executive secretary that I was missing so much, and it’s been a really wonderful experience.”
Espinosa might not be paying close attention, but we’re starting to see developed countries push back against this year’s hot topic, loss and damage, after developing nations laid out a unified case for why a funding mechanism separate to climate adaptation and mitigation is needed to address the climate catastrophes that can’t be averted. The US in particular has been accused of being a “bad faith actor” due to its long track record of disrupting and delaying progress on the issue.
“Yes, I can understand why people are saying that. Their reluctance on having an agenda item on loss and damage, and the fact that we are only now starting to really seriously talk about it is very surprising, because the losses and damages have been there for all these years.”
But, and it’s a big but, while developing countries and climate justice activists want a firm pledge to create a loss and damage mechanism at Cop27, Espinosa thinks we’re not there yet. “It is possible that there is a need to have some more conversations about what we mean by loss and damage and what we want to address.”
Back to the US, which has also been accused of bullying countries and getting special treatment – for example, having way more experts and advisers in meeting rooms than allowed. “I used to recommend to the chairs of the different groups that they should remind everybody that this is a harassment-free space, and that it is not acceptable to vote to cross certain lines. It’s not that I want to justify any specific country … people need to be open about it.”
Last but not least, once again we’re seeing developed nations focussing on loans – not grants – for developing countries. “That’s absolutely not fair. The issue of finance is really at the centre of the process and the fact that the pledge for mobilising $100bn has not been delivered is really very disappointing. It is very clear that the international financial system is not responding to the current needs of the world, especially of the most vulnerable countries that are bearing a lot of the costs. So that has to change.”
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Lack of enthusiasm for Biden and Pelosi
There has been grumbling among climate activists over what they regard as insipid appearances by Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi at Cop27.
Biden and Pelosi spoke strongly on Friday about the need to confront the climate crisis but neither dwelled on what is known as loss and damage, the animating issue of these talks for developing countries hit hardest by droughts, flooding and other climate impacts. The US has yet to meet its prior promises for climate finance and has previously stymied the concept of loss and damage.
Pelosi’s press conference was particularly galling, with the speaker of the US House of Representatives holding a sort of rote committee on domestic issues with fellow Democrats and only taking one question from the press afterwards. Biden, meanwhile, was interrupted by US indigenous activists demanding an end to fossil fuel extraction at home.
“The president, members of congress and the state department have come to this international forum on climate change proposing false solutions that will not get us to 1.5C,” said Big Wind, 29, a member of the Northern Arapaho tribe in Wyoming who was part of the protest.
Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, said the US’s “radio silence on loss and damage finance, offering insurance instead of real money while vulnerable countries have ramped up their demand for a finance facility proves once again how out of touch Biden is with the reality of the climate crisis”.
The climate group 350.org said there was a “glaring” absence of loss and damage in Biden’s speech and pointed out the hypocrisy of the US president urging other countries to stop financing fossil fuels while The US continues to pour billions of dollars into overseas oil and gas projects.
“As one of the world’s leading polluters, the pledges made by United States’ President Biden fall well short of the expectations of communities facing devastation from the impacts of the climate crisis,” said Charity Migwi, Africa regional campaigner for 350.org.
“Real climate action from a ‘climate leader’ would entail phasing out fossil fuels, providing much-needed loss and damage finance, and supporting the just transition to renewable energy in Africa. This would send a strong signal to other industrialised nations to take urgent action.”
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More photos are coming through of protests outside the conference centre this morning.
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Indigenous activists have accreditation revoked
The four Indigenous and youth activists from the US who briefly interrupted Joe Biden’s speech yesterday with a war cry and banner have had their Cop accreditation revoked.
Youth and Indigenous activists from the US interrupted Joe Biden to demand that he stop pushing fossil fuel extraction pic.twitter.com/nGuvxr22oo
— Nina Lakhani (@ninalakhani) November 11, 2022
Jacob Johns, 39, a Washington state-based community organiser from the Akimel O’otham and Hopi tribe, said the decision to oust them set a terrible precedent for the UN climate negotiations. “We come to this global platform to be heard because in America we are criminalised for defending air, water and environmental rights, and even though the president said in his speech that Indigenous people have the solutions, it was tokenism; we are not listened to.”
“When we raise our voices we are deemed a security threat, it’s ridiculous and exposes the hypocrisy of these negotiations,” Johns added.
The protest lasted just a few seconds, before the “People vs Fossil Fuels” banner was confiscated and the four protesters sat down. According to John, an Egyptian security official asked why they were screaming and wearing feathers, before they were escorted out of the plenary hall into a backroom by UN security staff. Johns said: “The UN security said that our war call had put people’s lives in danger, and we were now deemed a security threat. Our badges were pulled and we had to leave.”
Johns, who is here with Climate Action Network, and Jamie Wefald, 24, Big Wind, 29, and a fourth unnamed individual, who are here with SustainUS, are appealing against the UNFCCC decision.
Johns raised money through small individual donations to attend Cop27, and has been closely following negotiations on loss and damage, article 6 and Indigenous peoples. “I’m here as an organiser focused on policy work, and as an Indigenous person, not as a victim. We were calling out the blatant greenwashing by Biden, who was here selling false solutions like carbon offsetting and corporate partnerships that will not solve the problems we are facing. For my voice not to be heard would set a terrible precedent.”
The Guardian has requested comment from the UNFCCC.
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The proposed fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty is raising its profile at Cop27, with the US senator Edward Markey becoming the first US politician to back the call. The UN talks have set plenty of targets to cut fossil fuel emissions, but none to cut their supply. That’s the gap the treaty aims to fill, addressing the root cause of the climate crisis.
Without such a treaty, Tzeporah Berman, the chair of the initiative, told the Guardian “it is like trying to cut with one half of the scissors”. The treaty idea was inspired by nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaties and began with discussions between Berman and Mark Campanale, the founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, in 2016. The first article calling for the treaty was published in the Guardian in 2018, written by Andrew Simms and Peter Newell.
The US is one of the world’s biggest producers of fossil fuels and Markey told delegates at Cop27: “The US cannot preach temperance from a bar stool. We cannot tell other countries what to do if we’re not doing it ourselves. That’s why today, I am publicly supporting the call for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.”
There is far more coal, oil and gas in company and government reserves than can ever be burned if global heating is to be kept to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Markey, a long-time supporter of climate justice, has also told the campaigner and writer Bill McKibben that he intends to organise Democratic senators to demand the firing of the World Bank president, David Malpass. Malpass, a Trump appointee, has been mired in controversy over his commitment to climate action, and faces calls from many nations for major reform of the institution.
Read more on the treaty and its growing support in this explainer:
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A report released early this morning by campaigners Reboot Food finds that enough protein to feed the world could be produced in an area smaller than London.
The report suggests that if animal protein was grown through fermentation in tanks, rather than livestock in fields or barns, it would be a 40,900 times more efficient use of land.
The technology to make this happen is still at an early stage, but rapid advances have been made in recent years. My colleague Helena Horton has the full story here:
There is a heavy police presence in Sharm el-Sheikh for a protest outside the conference centre. At midday local time (10am GMT) we are expecting to see a march through the conference centre itself, but it is not clearly how tightly policed that will be.
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Food, agriculture and adaptation day at Cop27
Today is food day in Sharm el-Sheikh, the first ever dedicated day to agriculture and adaptation in a Cop - which is mindblowing given that a third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from industrialised food systems and the devastating effects the climate crisis is having on farming and food security.
Big agri-business and industrial agriculture is set to receive significant support from some governments in the main negotiating halls, where we expect to hear lots about “climate smart agriculture” and tech-driven solutions that will largely tinker with the current industrialised systems rather than push transformative change. One to watch is the session on the US-UAE initiative – the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate) which has already garnered at least $8bn in private-sector support. Small-scale and Indigenous sustainable farmers who produce 70% of the world’s food will not play a big role in the main negotiations but, outside the halls, will call for a fair share of subsidies and additional climate finance to build more diverse and resilient food systems that the IPCC says help to buffer temperature extremes and sequester carbon.
Outside the main negotiations there are dozens of food-focused side events taking place, and the Guardian will attempt to bring you a flavour of these throughout the day.
Just as a quick reminder on why climate and food matters: 37 million people face starvation in the Greater Horn of Africa after four consecutive droughts; unprecedented floods battered Pakistan’s major agricultural regions; and record-breaking temperatures throughout Europe have led to drastically reduced crop yields. Add to that Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has caused global shortages and price hikes in wheat, oilseeds and fertiliser, underscoring the fragility of the fossil-fuel dependent food industry that has sacrificed diversity, sustainability and resilience for mass production and profits.
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Bill McGuire, the author of the recent book Hothouse Earth, has written for the Guardian this morning about his pessimism that the target of keeping global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels will be met.
In retrospect, it is clear that having a specific target, rather than fighting to stop every fraction of a degree in temperature rise, has actually been counterproductive. There is a perennial problem with targets, and that is that they are always still reachable – until they aren’t. In this way, they can be used to justify inertia right up until it is too late. And this is exactly how fossil-fuel corporations, world leaders and others have used 1.5C – as a get-out-of-jail card to justify inaction on emissions. Continuing to present this temperature threshold as an attainable target provides a fig leaf for business as usual. Take it away, and this dangerous jiggery-pokery is exposed for all to see.
You can read the full piece here:
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Good morning, and welcome to the Guardian’s coverage of day six of the Cop27 climate talks taking place in Sharm el-Sheikh.
As we reach the end of the first week, Saturday’s theme is “adaptation and agriculture”. It’s also traditionally the day most focused on protest, although that will be limited this year due to the Egyptian government’s draconian crackdown on protests. However, there will be lots of other actions around the world.
On Friday, Joe Biden made a flying visit to the conference, where the US president made a speech saying world leaders “can no longer plead ignorance” and that “the science is devastatingly clear – we have to make progress by the end of this decade.” My colleague Oliver Milman was there, and you can read his report here:
You can also catch up on the rest of the day’s events here.
I’m Alan Evans, and you can send me story tips, comments, pictures, questions or abuse at alan.evans@theguardian.com, or on Twitter at @itsalanevans.
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