COP 27: World Meteorological Organization rings alarm on day 1; both concern and hope for Sundarbans

COP 27, at Sharm-El-Sheikh; Egypt, gets underway with a stark warning and a sharp reminder that climate change is becoming more threatening with every passing year.

India with neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh have been identified as being most impacted in ongoing 2022; and the data suggests that lowly placed coastal areas like Sunderbans are likely to be increasingly affected.

Sundarbans however also has got an array of hope with financial support to Loss and damage being accepted as an agenda for the formal negotiation. Loss and damage pertain to the impact already faced by the regions and community due to climate change; and Sundarbans is a global hotspot on that agenda.

Warming continues unabated, says WMO report

The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022 report, released on Sunday almost concurrently with the opening of COP 27, points out that “the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, fuelled by ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat”.

WMO Secretary-General Prof Petteri Taalas admitted that keeping the temperature rise within 1.5 degree C, the lower level of Paris agreement mandate with 2 degrees being the upper one, “is barely within reach (as) we have such high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now”.

As per the report south Asia including India has been one of the most highly impacted region in 2022 due to climatic impacts.

The report has pointed out that 2022 may be slightly cooler compared to last few years but that is only an exception and caused by a rare phenomenon; and is likely to be reversed soon.

“A rare triple-dip cooling La Niña means that 2022 is likely to only be fifth or sixth warmest. However, this does not reverse the long-term trend; it is only a matter of time until there is another warmest year on record” categorically states the report.

The report has estimated the 10-year average for the period 2013-2022 to be “1.14 [1.02 to 1.27] °C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline”. The comparative figure during 2011- 2020 was”1.09°C … as estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment report”.
Concern for Sundarbans

Not only heat; the report categorically says that overall “the tell-tale signs and impacts of climate change are becoming more dramatic” and has found that the sea level rise has doubled within the last three decades; since 1993, which may push coastal areas like Sunderbans under more risk.

Sunderban has already had sea level rise of about 8 mm per year, more than double of the global average of about 3.5 mm per year, and it may turn worse, indicated the ew report.

“It has risen by nearly 10 mm since January 2020 to a new record high this year. The past two and a half years alone account for 10 percent of the overall rise in sea level since satellite measurements started nearly 30 years ago”, says report.

The sea level rise adds up to half to one meter per century and that is a long-term and major threat to many millions of coastal dwellers and low-lying states,” added WMO secretary general.

Hope for Sundarbans

Discussion on Loss and Damage finance has been a long standing demand of developing and vulnerable countries including India; but developed countries so far have blocked the process.

In case of any financial facility cleared in future for climate change, Sundarbans will be a major claimant as the region witnesses both instant impacts in form of cyclones, as well as long term impact like sea level rise. Millions have been affected over last two decades for climate change inflicted extreme weather events starting from Aila cyclone in 2009; and such events is on the rise.

The issue of Loss and Damage finance was pushed in Glasgow COP by the developing countries but the developed block, led by USA, managed to turn the loss and damage facility to a dialogue on the last day.

Developed countries, which are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases and hence are likely to be pushed to provide bulk of the funding, finally allowed the item to be formally discussed as the developing countries and civil society threatened severe implications of a refusal. The discussion will conclude within two years.

“It’s a very welcome start to the COP and now we can discuss the modalities of the process in a formal manner. The United Kingdom and other developed countries more or less accepted it before but the USA was not accepting earlier” said Saleemul Huq, a senior climate British Bangladeshi scientist and advisor of the least developed countries.

However, the developed countries accepted the agenda with a trade off that it would not include “compensation and liability” targeting to evade historical responsibility of emission.

Experts however feel the beginning of the discussion is an important development.

“Loss and damage finance agenda for COP 27 adopted, not without rich countries bullying poorer nations to a language to protect historical polluters from compensation and liability; nevertheless , a new chapter has begun” opined Harjeet Singh, a senior advisor of Climate Action Network International, one of the biggest civil society group.