3 Takeaways from COP27

The big news this week: COP27 has resulted in a deal. I’m back from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh where the international climate conference was held, and I’ve got some reflections to share about the experience.

First, a thank you: I was there with my incredible Devex colleagues, Will Worley, Rumbi Chakamba , Sara Jerving, Margaret R. , Naomi Mihara , Kate Warren , Julie Espinosa , Jessica Rodríguez Balderas, Jenni Cardamone and Alli Blount . We hosted an inspiring day of side events and receptions, including some newsmaking interviews with Andrew Steer and Alice Albright.

In short, COP27 was intense. It was my first time at a COP and I didn’t expect the crush of people (some 40,000 attendees) and the cacophony of conversations across hundreds of pavilions and thousands of speakers. As our reporters on the ground said, comfortable shoes were a must.?

Amid the din, COP also had a certain harmony. There was something powerful about seeing so many climate activists, heads of state, scientists, journalists, CEOs? and everyone in between converge in one place to address the most significant challenge of our time. (To get a sense of the scene, check out a short video I took here.) At any given moment, you could wait in line for coffee with a grassroots activist, or bond over the search for strong wi-fi with a government minister. As much as it highlighted the complexity of coordinating so many diverse actors, COP also showed a determination to come together over a common goal.?

Here are my key takeaways from the event:?

1. This was the Development COP

The conference in Sharm El-Sheikh has been widely hailed as the “Implementation COP.” But I think a more accurate moniker is the Development COP. To understand why, we’ve got to briefly look back over COP’s recent history.?

Since 1995, nearly 200 nations and territories have met annually to evaluate the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. While meaningful discussions had taken place at prior COPs, it wasn’t until 2015, at the 21st session held in Paris, that the first international climate agreement emerged. The legally binding Paris Agreement called for all countries to unite to stop global temperatures from rising more than 2—preferably 1.5—degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.?

Though the Paris Agreement was entered into force in 2016, subsequent COPs were largely dedicated to negotiating the rules and processes that countries must follow in order to curb emissions in line with the agreement. Last year at COP26, that lengthy process was finally completed, with 197 countries signing on to the Glasgow Climate Pact.?

This made COP27 the first conference dedicated not to ironing out the rules, but turning them into action. Whereas previous years involved intense negotiations among states, it’s now up to the development community to deliver on the agreed-upon promises. Lowering emissions isn’t a top-down job; it’s got to involve stakeholders at multiple levels across economies and borders.?

2. Global Health is undergoing a climate re-think

Bezos Earth Fund chief Andrew Steer told me at our COP27 side event that there are multiple transformations that have to happen if we want to address the climate crisis. Think transportation, agriculture, energy.?

One of those transformations that’s more under-the-radar is global health. It turns out climate change is a global health crisis. And for me, COP27 laid bare the necessity of reimagining climate and global health in tandem.

In 2021, around 46 million healthcare professionals signed an open letter imploring country leaders and delegations at COP26 and 27 to center all climate mitigation and adaptation strategies around human health and equity. The health impacts of climate change are incredibly diverse—extreme weather events interrupt food systems; habitat and biodiversity loss has given rise to disease; mental health has been impaired due to climate-related stress and anxiety. And these maladies aren’t distributed equally—the poor and marginalized are the ones bearing the brunt of the warming planet’s ill effects.?

As Mattias Berninger told me in our podcast interview, many millions of people may find themselves dealing with “wet bulb” conditions in which both heat and humidity are so high that the human body can’t cool down through perspiration. This may mean many millions of people will have to migrate or, when they can’t, will need emergency medications to survive the conditions.

Stark examples like this show it’s no longer enough simply to acknowledge the connection between climate and health. COP27 showed that organizations are thinking critically about how to restructure health in an equitable way.?

At a discussion we hosted at COP27, the British health research charity Wellcome took itself to task for its tendency to direct funding toward moneyed Western institutions like Oxford and Cambridge. Not only do charities like Wellcome need to diversify the research they fund, said Alice Bell, the organization’s health and climate policy lead, they also need to expand the scope of how data is used and shared. This means getting it in the hands of those outside the health field—policymakers, for example, could leverage research into real solutions.??

Because those solutions are becoming more urgent. With melting permafrost and diminishing rainforests releasing potential diseases we’ve never seen before, the pace of global health innovation is going to have to speed-up.

3. The Science Is Sobering

I’d never been to Sharm and was struck by how beautifully it’s framed against the postcard-perfect Red Sea. I even found time for early-morning snorkeling and was amazed by? the rich coral reefs and hundreds of colorful fish species. All this visual splendor just made what’s at stake feel even more visceral and personal.

It’s not a secret that climate change is wreaking havoc. From extreme weather events like heat waves and floods to the proliferation of vector-borne illnesses, rising global temperatures are having a disproportionate effect on the world’s most vulnerable populations. Between 2030 and 2050, the World Health Organization foresees climate change causing as many as 250,000 additional deaths per year.?

It’s one thing to read statistics like these in a report, but it’s another to witness them reinforced in person by experts and people living through it. Climate scientists, whose work focuses on the logic of climate change, shared the stage with those whose lives have been upended by its effects. Hindou Ibrahim told us at our Devex side event how her Lake Chad region has suffered for so long from droughts, only to be hit now by Biblical floods. Refugees fleeing violence in the Sahel had made their way to small islands created in the lake by the drought; now those islands and their new homes are covered.

The amount of work that lies ahead is staggering. Even so, COP filled me with at least some measure of optimism. Huge numbers of people from all corners of the world are committed to slowing climate change and adapting to it. Seeing so many of them in one place, with all their passion, energy and determination, gives you the sense they won’t stop until they succeed.