The UN Climate Change Conference COP27 which was held in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022 proved a landmark event for the MENA region and the world. The conference saw the needle move towards ‘Climate justice’ with a breakthrough agreement on loss and damage funding for vulnerable countries which have been hit hard by devastating floods, droughts, and wildfires. 

While this moment was hailed as an important landmark in the move towards mitigating the impact of climate change, much work needs to be done to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. UN climate scientists have repeatedly pressed the alarm for 2025 to be the year for greenhouse gas emissions to peak and be reduced by 43% by 2030 to keep 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach.

The conference saw a new phase of implementation of Net-zero goals with a focus on accountability towards businesses, institutions, and governments. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed that, “Net-zero commitments can't be a mere public relations exercise if we want to win the fight against climate change. We must have zero tolerance for greenwashing.”

The pivot towards implementation of climate pledges was highlighted by UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell who called for aligning “every corner of human activity” with the 1.5°C goal, saying “Paris gave us the agreement and Katowice and Glasgow gave us the plan, Sharm el-Sheikh shifts us to implementation.” The pivot is to come through ‘just transition,’ a work programme which is expected to build on and complement the work to urgently scale up mitigation-ambition and implementation. 

Egypt, the host country’s Minister of Environment and Ministerial Coordinator and Climate Envoy for COP27, Yasmine Fouad, helmed the launch of the first voluntary, Africa-wide carbon credit exchange to encourage and diversify investment in the continent’s green economy. The carbon certificates trading market is a push towards non-traditional financing mechanisms such as grants, loans and private sector investments, which opens the way for African countries, where the trading of carbon certificates contributes to obtaining a financial reward that allows them to implement projects to address the negative effects of climate change.

The built environment

The built environment is responsible for upto 40% of greenhouse gas emissions and consumes more than 30% of global resources. It, hence, has a disproportionately large role in reducing emissions and ensuring the goal of net-zero is within reach. Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Egypt, COP27, said,“The built environment is a critical sector to achieve the needed transition to a resilient and zero emissions future. Buildings are responsible for almost 40% of global energy-related carbon emissions and 50% of all extracted materials.  

In Africa alone, with increasing population growth and rapid unplanned urbanization, there is mounting demand for buildings. We have an urgent need to meet rapid delivery of resilient homes and buildings, and we need to avoid ‘locking’ emissions in inefficient construction.  This is an investment opportunity, with bankable projects seeking finance at scale. Reducing emissions through green buildings comes with a USD $24.7 trillion investment opportunity over the next decade across emerging market cities. From finance to energy to job creation, the built environment can accelerate resilience and climate action across all parts of the economy.” 

The key message coming out of COP27 is that city wide improvements must be prioritised to significantly improve climate mitigation, while also increasing resilience to better manage adverse climate impacts. 

Cities have been a key focus at COP27 for two reasons:

• They produce about 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions, making them a significant contributor to climate change.
• Climate change is exposing cities to extreme effects including extreme weather events, climbing average temperatures and biodiversity loss. 

During this year’s conference, the Clean Construction Accelerator was announced, an act that hopes to support the built environment sector in halving emissions by 2030 for all new buildings and infrastructure projects. The goals of the accelerator are: 

• Reduce embodied emissions by at least 50% for all new buildings and major retrofits by 2030.
• Reduce embodied emissions by at least 50% of all infrastructure projects by 2030
• Require zero emission construction sites city-wide by 2030, where technology is available.

The signatory cities were: Budapest, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City, Milan, Oslo, San Francisco.

Building equitable and resilient communities - decarbonising our built environment and tackling production and consumption of materials and products is essential to mitigate further climate change. However, the impacts of climate change are already being felt - creating equitable, resilient and protected communities for people to thrive is urgently needed.

A transition to a circular economy was highlighted as the solution to creating tremendous economic, social, and environmental benefits. Currently, around 95% of the value of construction materials is lost as existing buildings decay into obsolescence and then demolition. The world’s building stock will be doubled by 2060, and as new construction creates an estimated third of the globe’s waste, the sector cannot afford to not tackle waste and consumption. Some cities are radically collaborating with business and industry to drive circular practices and construction, which demonstrate a new business model. Furthermore, low emissions, circular and resilient principles can assist Africa and the global south leapfrog the development gap.

At COP27, the UN launched SURGe (Sustainable Urban Resilience for the Next Generation) to encourage cities to share targets and co-create a holistic programme for climate adaption in urban areas. The focus is on decarbonisation, climate adaption, reaching nature-positivity, preserving culture all while promoting human and biodiversity health.

Negotiators also made strides within certain industry sectors. The 2030 Breakthrough Agenda, first announced at COP26 as a platform to encourage decarbonization of five key emitting sectors including power, steel, road transport, agriculture, and hydrogen, was updated in a process led by broad coalitions including the G7, the European Commission, India, Egypt, and Morocco. These updated sector-focused actions will aid the scaling up of clean technologies addressing affordability, innovation, and deployment.  

Other particularly notable outcomes included directing private and public procurement and infrastructure spend for low-carbon industrial goods; creating, under the multilateral Climate Investment Fund, an Industry Transition Programme focused on vulnerable countries; and launching the Sharm el-Sheikh Methane Reduction Roadmap.

Over to 2023, where all eyes will be on whether parties adopt a strong framework for the Global Goal on Adaptation, whether financial pledges — to the Adaptation Fund, Least Developed Countries Fund and others — are fulfilled; if progress is made towards doubling adaptation finance and the extent to which businesses and institutions scale their adaptation efforts.