Regardless of Egypt’s motivations or whether or not COP 27 is ‘African’, the vast majority of the consequences wrought by the climate crisis, are. Africa, therefore, needs to confront the crisis head-on.
Editor's note: This essay is available in our print issue, A New Chapter for African Artefacts?. Buy the issue here.
The 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which has come to be known as the ‘African COP’, will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt from 6–18 November 2022. This is the first time in six years that the COP will happen in Africa.
The event will see ministers and officials from prominent UN and multilateral agencies coming together with over 1,000 delegates from 42 African countries. Since 1995, COPs have been the primary avenue for negotiations surrounding climate change and the climate crisis. So crucial have the conferences been that, ten years after their inception, they gave birth to the 2015 Paris Agreement. The Agreement—which strives for the herculean task of substantially reducing the emission of greenhouse gases to keep global warming ‘well below 2° C’, with the lofty preference of 1.5 degrees Celsius—is the first binding agreement that commits all nations to taking concrete steps to address climate change...
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