A COP of Unmet Expectations

Like all international climate summits, COP27 began with high hopes but will be remembered as the COP of unmet expectations. So, what’s next for the international climate community?

Written by Oluwaseun Oguntuase

Jan 24, 2023

Photography by Peter Summers / GETTY IMAGES

Editor’s note: This essay is available in our print issue, Godfathers: An Introduction. Buy the issue here.

Before the dust settles, the postmortem of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly referred to as COP27, can begin. The outcomes of the second most attended climate summit, held in the Egyptian coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, have continued to attract mixed commentary. The annual conference is the world’s primary forum for stakeholders, including political leaders, civil societies, businesses, and other observers to reach agreements on tackling the climate emergency.

As UN Chief António Guterres starkly put it, ‘Climate change is on a different timeline and scale than other global crises. It’s the defining issue of our age; the central challenge of our century.’

The devastating impacts of climate disasters in the year 2022, more intense than many ‘doomsday’ scientists predicted, are dominant backdrops at COP27—from the biblical-level flooding in Pakistan and Nigeria, to the longest-running drought fuelling hunger in Somalia, punishing temperatures and wildfires across Europe, then Hurricane Ian pummelling western Cuba and southeast United States.

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About the Author

Oluwaseun Oguntuase

is a scholar-practitioner based in Lagos, Nigeria. His articles have been published in Mail & Guardian, The Africa Report, Nairametrics, The Nation and Blueprint.

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A COP of Unmet Expectations