The European Union said it would rather have “no result” than a bad one at UN climate talks, after rejecting a proposal from summit host Egypt as insufficiently ambitious on reducing carbon emissions.
European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said the EU would “rather have no result than a bad result” and was willing to walk out of the negotiations altogether, but added that they were still hoping for a good outcome.
The “vast majority” of nations attending crunch climate talks say Egypt’s proposed package of resolutions is “balanced”, COP27 president Sameh Shoukry said after the EU slammed the text.
“The vast majority of the parties indicated to me they considered the text as balanced and that they constitute a potential breakthrough that can lead to consensus,” Shoukry, who is also Egypt’s foreign minister, told journalists as the talks went into overtime.
“At this stage, the Egyptian presidency is calling into question gains made in Glasgow on emissions reduction,” an official from the French energy transition ministry told AFP, referring to the outcome of last year’s COP26. “This is unacceptable for France and for European Union countries.”
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to limit global warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius compared to the late 19th century.
They also signed on to an aspirational goal of capping the rise in temperature to 1.5C, which scientists subsequently confirmed was a far safer guardrail against catastrophic climate impacts.
This more ambitious 1.5C target was embraced last year in Glasgow, with countries agreeing to annually review their carbon reduction goals.
“The problem is that the Egyptian presidency is trying to push through a text that removes the obligation of countries to regularly strengthen their national targets in order to meet the 1.5C goal,” the French official said.
Timmermans, who is leading the EU delegation at COP27, said the talks were “in overtime”.
“The EU is united in our ambition to move forward and build on what we agreed in Glasgow,” he wrote on Twitter. “Our message to partners is clear: we cannot accept that 1.5C dies here and today.”
The two-week talks in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh have bogged down over a number of intertwined issues, including how — and how quickly — to funnel money to vulnerable developing countries already slammed by climate-enhanced storms, droughts, heatwaves, and floods.
