Climate conference checks the to-do list

This year’s UN climate conference, COP27, is underway in Egypt, with leaders from 120 countries gathering to talk climate change—but with little progress made on promises from last year’s summit and energy in short supply, there’s unlikely to be much appetite for big commitments. 

Why it matters: While previous COP conferences have produced headline-grabbing pledges to limit emissions, discussions this year will focus on actually achieving some of those goals.

  • One of the thorniest issues on the table this year is the matter of who will pay for developing countries to deal with extreme weather events made worse by climate change.
     
  • These countries say they are disproportionately harmed by floods, droughts, and other climate-related disasters but didn’t reap the economic rewards of burning fossil fuels—now they want rich countries to help foot the bill for climate damages.

Another major challenge on the agenda will be helping middle-income countries switch from coal, which produces a relatively large amount of pollution but is cheap to burn.

  • South Africa, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam are all heavily reliant and coal and depend on access to cheap energy to fuel economic growth.
     
  • As we saw in Europe, which quickly turned back to coal after losing access to Russian gas, most countries appear unwilling to tolerate higher energy prices (even if it means polluting more).

Yes, but: Investments by individual states in energy technology, which have only begun to ramp up, are already driving down the cost of clean power sources.

  • The US is spending $370 billion on clean energy through the Inflation Reduction Act; China spent $380 billion last year and is expected to increase that sum this year.
     
  • Meanwhile, the price of solar power and lithium-ion batteries has fallen 85% since 2010, and wind power costs are down 55%.

Bottom line: So far, the COP conferences have produced more paper pledges than concrete action, but there’s greater reason to be optimistic about climate issues today than in past years.