The 22nd session of the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP22), held in Marrakech, Morocco, from 7 to 18 November, concluded this week with 200 nations setting a deadline of 2018 for an action plan aimed at implementing the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. The agreement, ratified by 100 countries in the French capital last December and entering into force on 4 November, urges a global commitment to holding temperatures to a maximum 2 C rise, and for the first time commits both rich and poor countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Marrakech Conference was attended by hundreds of representatives from UN member states eager to follow up on the implementation of the agreement. Patricia Espinosa, secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said the conference had “successfully demonstrated to the world that the implementation of the Paris Agreement is underway and the constructive spirit of multilateral cooperation on climate change continues.” “During COP22, the strength, the support for and the robustness of the Paris Agreement were further underlined,” Espinosa told the conference. She referred to rich countries' pledges to pay $100 billion in support of climate-change adaptation and mitigation plans in countries most vulnerable to the effects of global warming. Espinosa further praised the swift shifts in the positions of many countries towards global warming and their rapidly evolving understandings of the urgent need to save the planet as a catalyst for a better future for their citizens. “Here in Marrakech, governments underlined that this shift is now urgent, irreversible and unstoppable,” she maintained. There was an unmistakably robust spirit among the participants. The delegations unanimously adopted a declaration aimed at ramping up commitments to urgently cut global-warming carbon emissions as a top priority to save the planet from impending tragedy if temperatures keep on rising at their current unprecedented levels. They also reiterated the necessity of seeing that the 2030 Plan for Sustainable Development, part of the Paris Agreement, achieves its goals and stressed that countries should have the political will to combat climate change and put it at the top of their agendas. In the conference's closing session, almost all the participants declared the necessity of reinforcing efforts to combat poverty and food insecurity resulting from climate change. The conference reiterated that all countries should take action to mitigate the impacts of climate change on agriculture in accordance with the Paris Agreement. The conference pledge of an annual $100 billion in support of efforts to curb the impacts of global warming in vulnerable countries is viewed as a step in the right direction. Countries should share responsibility and collaborate in efforts to support adaptation measures in developing and underdeveloped countries before 2020 where some of the world's most vulnerable people live, the delegates to the conference said. In his capacity as head of the African states group at the COP22, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi stressed the importance of cooperation among the nations on climate change in a statement presented by Environment Minister Khaled Fahmi, attending the conference on behalf of Al-Sisi. The statement stressed the need for technology transfer and capacity building as well as the importance of sustaining the pledged annual $100 billion budget in support of adaption measures in response to climate change in countries that are most vulnerable to warming. The statement also underscored the importance of the African Initiative for Renewable Energy and the African Initiative for Adaptation as being instrumental in conveying the aspirations of the African nations to the rest of the world. Al-Sisi stressed in the statement that Egypt was exerting all its efforts in putting forth these two Initiatives and was ready to host the secretariat of the African Renewable Energy Committee now that it had finished its strategy for sustainable development which includes tackling issues of climate change. On the sidelines of the conference Fahmi chaired meetings with African ministers to discuss ways to mitigate the effects of climate change on the continent's most vulnerable regions. He launched an African Environmental Cooperation Forum aimed at coordinating environmental activities on the African continent, exchanging experiences among its nations, disseminating knowledge across the continent, and safeguarding the African ownership of sustainable development projects, especially those implemented before 2063. Fahmi stressed the importance of the conference for African ministers of the environment, providing a platform for African voices to unite in designing ways to meet African challenges. Fahmi also met with his Ghanaian, German and Russian counterparts to discuss possible collaboration in the field of the environment. In his meeting with his Ghanaian counterpart, Fahmi discussed the possible ratification of a bilateral agreement during the expected visit of the Ghanaian president to Cairo. For her part, the Ghanaian minister expressed her interest in collaborating with Egypt in preserving biological diversity and sharing technological experiences in testing and upgrading water and air resources. Fahmi also discussed ways of collaborating with Germany in the field of climate change with German Minister of Environment Jochen Flasbarth, who expressed his country's willingness to support Egypt in its programme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Fahmi also agreed with the minister of natural resources and environment of the Russian Federation to ratify a bilateral agreement on waste management, solid waste management and technologies to improve the efficiency of water supplies. The agreement should be signed on the sidelines of another meeting due to take place in Cancun next month. King Mohamed VI of Morocco warned that any lag in addressing climate change could have serious ramifications and pose a threat to the stability and security of all nations. He urged the world to move fast and to observe the values of justice and cooperation in meeting the challenges of climate change, empowering less-developed and small island countries in the Global South and providing them with the financial and technological assistance that would help them to adapt to climate change. He also stressed the importance of rich countries keeping their pledges to provide at least $100 billion in annual financial assistance to these countries before 2020 and underscored the importance of the involvement of civil society in boosting government efforts to combat global warming. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stressed the importance of the advanced world remaining committed to providing financial assistance to developing and vulnerable countries where low-carbon economies and mitigation and adaptation efforts will need scaling up to help achieve the objectives of sustainable development. Ki-Moon noted that the advanced world was supporting the Paris Agreement because it realised that serving all nations' interests was in its own best interests. President of the UN General Assembly Peter Thomson urged all member states signatory to the Paris Agreement to implement it at the national level, since addressing climate change “is a duty in every sense – ethical, environmental, scientific and developmental,” he said. “It is crucial that developed countries scale up their commitments to mobilise $100 billion annually by 2020, in support of developing countries' climate action,” Thomson told the conference's opening session. President of the COP22 Salaheddin Mezouar told the conference that a collective perspective had been reached among the participants who had set 2017 as the deadline for the implementation of important projects. He said that this would be the year of many fully-fledged projects and would witness the scaling-up and mobilisation of finance and facilities for the implementation of mitigation and adaptation plans. Mezouar said that some member states had already made their pledges, urging other countries to follow suit. He did not miss the chance of reminding the developed countries of their commitment to the provision of financing as an important milestone in the Paris Agreement. The Fiji Islands will organise the next UN climate summit to be held next November in the German city of Bonn. Meanwhile, China and the UN jointly organised a High Level Forum on South-South Cooperation on Climate Change on the margins of the Marrakech COP22 Summit. The Forum aimed at shedding light on different initiatives as well as the challenges facing the countries of the South in the fight against climate change. Special representative of China on climate change Zhenhua Xie said his country was willing to share its experiences in the field of combatting climate change at the forum. He referred to China's contributions to promoting regional and global low-carbon transitions and to the African Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI), as well as initiatives promoting mitigation and adaptation measures in other countries. China, he said, had ratified 27 protocols on climate change with other countries thus far. “It is encouraging and inspiring to see how South-South cooperation is gaining traction,” said David Nabarro, special adviser to the UN secretary-general on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Change at the Forum. Such cooperation was part and parcel of the collective responsibility that paved the way to the implementation of the Paris Agreement, he said. He praised those countries that have been involved in sustainable development initiatives, citing China's flagship programme, the South-South Cooperation Fund on Climate Change, which was “expanding the capacities of more developing countries to engage in this kind of collaboration,” he said. Nabarro also said that the UN had launched the Climate Partnerships for the Global South, also known as the Southern Climate Partnership Incubator (SCPI), to initiate, facilitate and support partnerships that will help developing countries address climate change. The SCPI had “reviewed 300 examples of bilateral, trilateral and plurilateral partnerships facilitated by the UN, non-governmental organisations and multilateral development banks,” he said. Espinosa told the forum's participants that “while it is clear that developed countries need to provide support to developing countries to reach their goals under the Paris Agreement, this also encourages complimentary support such as South-South cooperation.” “Indeed, South-South cooperation is rapidly becoming an integral component of international cooperation to address climate change,” she concluded.
