COP27: Momentum Sustained, Now For Results

Justin Keeble , Managing Director of Global Sustainability, Google Cloud & Jack Ngare , Technical Director, Office of the CTO, Google Cloud

Over the past two weeks the world's leading nations met in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss the ongoing global crisis that is climate change. Collectively, they fell short on one of the toughest, most essential challenges: Fairness.?

How can the wealthy nations, historically among the greatest contributors of both excess carbon and continuing dependence on fossil fuels, compensate the many poorer nations, often the most deeply affected by climate change impacts like harsh weather and flooding? How can the rich expect support from the rest in reducing emissions, if they will not help more? This issue was long below the surface, but it's increasingly front and centre, owing to the way the world is changing.

To be sure, not all at the 27th Climate Change Conference, or COP27, was gloom. Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio, Lula da Silva said his nation would re-engage to preserve the Amazon rainforest, a critical area in capturing carbon. The United States likewise signaled a renewed commitment to this agenda including cooperation with China. A coalition of wealthy nations pledged $20 billion to help Indonesia move off burning coal. Against the scale of the problem, and the accelerating number of climate disasters the world is experiencing, more was needed.?

These positive developments met a difficult new complexity at COP 27, where there was a profound change in the makeup of the discussion. Increasingly, the COPs aren’t just a kind of diplomatic negotiation; they have become vocal forums for non-state actors, especially representatives of civil society, cities & regions, businesses and investors. They are feeling the effects of a changing climate, and they want a say in how to fix it.

Sharm El-Sheikh saw over 30,000 attendees beyond the political negotiators. These constituencies voice successes and frustrations, and showcase both meaningful action and its opposite.?

This provides a fuller picture of the problem, brings in more actors, and can lead to more complete and committed solutions. It doesn't make things simpler though, and it rightly creates more calls for the wealthy to do more. In particular, this COP was also about the urgent and important agenda of the global South, especially Africa - given Egypt was the host.?

Of the six industrialised continents, Africa contributes the least to climate change. In 2019, it drove only 4% of global CO2e emissions (BCG, 2021). Yet this year, Southern Africa was beset by extraordinary floods and storms that killed hundreds. The Horn of Africa is ravaged by drought. The Sahara grew.

Africa, driven by a youthful demographic, improving governance, and broad infrastructure investments, was headed for unprecedented growth. However, recent geopolitical events, volatility in commodity prices, and COVID held back this growth. Then came the weather. In all, the region’s GDP is projected to contract to 3.6% in 2022, a nearly 25% drop in its growth rate of 4.7% in 2021 (IMF, 2022).

This underlines the need to act quickly where poorer regions are concerned. While we must continue in long range climate mitigation to reduce the potential consequences of climate change, we urgently need to ramp up the adaptation agenda, particularly in the areas that need it most, but can afford it least.?Three factors will be essential:

Leadership - Few things are more capable of driving action than the urgent and personal conviction of those in positions of power and influence. Last week, Sanda Ojiambo , the Executive Director of the UN Global Compact launched the Africa Business Leaders Coalition bringing together a group of 50 leading CEOs from major African companies, with the goal of ensuring the perspectives of African business leaders are represented in addressing the continent’s most pressing issues, including climate change. These leaders have a huge opportunity to accelerate the adaptation agenda across their own businesses and supply chains.?

Technology - The world needs to improve access to the means of understanding and change. This includes connectivity, and skills to improve the way all businesses, from large enterprises down to a single rural farmer, can harness new tools to manage risk and improve productivity. To that end, Google is proud and excited to be bringing high-quality digital connectivity to Africa, along with a commitment to train over 10M people with digital skills, including AI and data science, over the next 5 years.

Technologies open up innovation. For example, Twiga is improving food security & reducing waste in Kenya using Google Cloud’s scalable infrastructure and analytics. Its e-commerce platform and aggregated purchasing, along with greater access to credit, is improving the efficiency of traditional African retailers. Smallholder producers who once contended with an array of intermediaries can access new markets at fairer prices. It's one encouraging example of better fairness and sustainability.

Collaboration - Above all, we are one planet, and none of us can solve these challenges alone. We urgently need coalitions at the national, regional and international level. The new voices in the discussion, along with the less wealthy nations, need to be brought into closer collaboration.

The UN’s Race to Resilience is one example. This aims at catalyzing a step change in global ambition and action for climate resilience, by mobilizing action from non-state stakeholders towards building the resilience of four billion people, while ensuring that the voices of front-line communities are heard.?

Through Google.org and Google Research we have created the Flood Hub. This is a platform that displays flood forecasts and shows when and where floods may occur to help people directly at risk and provide critical information to aid organizations and governments. We are now producing flood inundation maps on a near weekly basis helping authorities to forecast floods but also assess damage and support compensation disbursements after flood events.?

New scientific information, often delivered through more powerful technology, tells us to expect more extreme weather. That is good news; it was coming anyway, and we're now better equipped to work on problem solving, in a spirit of leadership and collaboration. We have the tools to know where and how this will play out.

As we leave COP27 it’s clear - we must urgently invest in building resilience where it is needed most, speaking to greater fairness through action. COP27 was described as the Implementation COP. Thousands of panel sessions and speeches made references to implementation, impressed the urgency for implementation, and shared tools to guide implementation. Now, we need to get on with the real work of delivery.?

We’ll be back at COP28, hopefully sharing the results of our progress and lessons learned to help move all of us forward.?