The Copenhagen Conference: A Stepping Stone towards the Climate Summit in Dubai?

The Copenhagen Ministerial Climate Conference has started, months prior to the climate summit “COP 28” that will be held in Dubai, which is hosted by the United Arab Emirates. The two-day meeting is attended by ministers and climate envoys, and experts anticipate that this meeting may pave the way for concrete results at “Cop 28”. Egyptian Foreign Minister and COP 27 president Sameh Shoukry will lead the conference alongside appointed COP 28 president Sultan Al Jaber. The conference concentrates on stimulating the implementation of the outcomes of the (COP 27) summit and key issues on adaptation to climate change, mitigating emissions, and financing losses and damages. The financing mechanism, who bears the greatest responsibility for financing, how deserving damages are assessed, and other details that need to be determined are the focus of the discussions. Experts expect that conferences preceding “COP 28” will deal with implementing agreements at “Cop 27” until mechanisms are adopted in “Cop 28”.

How does the Copenhagen conference pave the way for the climate summit in Dubai?

It will be held under the joint Egyptian-Emirati presidency

Monday – 28 Shaaban 1444 AH – March 20, 2023 AD

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry at the Copenhagen Climate Conference (archive)

Cairo: Hazem Badr

Months before the climate summit “COP 28”, which is being hosted by the UAE city of Dubai, the activities of the Copenhagen Ministerial Climate Conference began today (Monday), in the presence of ministers and climate envoys, and the meeting will continue for two days. Experts are counting on this meeting, as it may pave the way for tangible results in “Cop 28”.
The conference will be chaired by Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian Foreign Minister and COP 27 president, and Sultan Al Jaber, appointed COP 28 president. Featuring Dan Jorgensen, Danish Minister of Energy and Climate, Simon Still, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and other senior United Nations officials and non-governmental stakeholders.
A statement issued Monday by the Egyptian presidency of the “COP 27” conference, of which Asharq Al-Awsat received a copy, says, “This high-level political meeting will focus on stimulating the implementation of the results of the (COP 27) summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, and will address key issues related to adaptation to climate change.” , mitigating emissions, and financing losses and damages, through a tripartite agenda dealing with the implementation of the Sharm el-Sheikh plan, building on the results reached, and the commitments and commitments that have been approved, setting a course for (COP 28) in the United Arab Emirates, and promoting the objectives of the Paris agreements for the climate.”
Since the conclusion of the COP27 summit, which witnessed the stuttering birth of its final communiqué, climate ministers and prominent political figures have been meeting directly to advance the COP process. Experts expect that this conference will be the beginning of other meetings aimed at settling on clear mechanisms to implement what was agreed upon in “Cop 27”, until those mechanisms are adopted in “Cop 28”.
Hussein Abu Al-Naga, Executive Director of the Arab Network for Sustainable Development, told Asharq Al-Awsat, “The file of financing losses and damages will undoubtedly be of great importance in this meeting, and any other meetings that precede the upcoming climate summit in the UAE. Because despite approving the principle of financing losses and damages, no details were agreed upon, and this task was postponed to the meetings preceding the summit.
This file includes many details that need to be decided, such as the financing mechanism, who bears the greatest responsibility for financing, how damages that deserve financing are assessed, how countries suffering from climate change damages apply for financing, and whether a new entity will be created for this task. Or will it be assigned to existing entities, as Abu Al-Naga explains.
He adds, “Each of these details needs to be decided, and it would be very appropriate to resolve them in the meetings preceding the (COP 28) summit, in order to be approved at that summit.”
Among the other issues, which are gaining great momentum these days, and Magdy Allam, Secretary-General of the Union of Arab Environmental Experts, expects that “they will cast a shadow over this conference, and the conferences that will follow, the clear regression in the (emissions mitigation) file, which called on the Secretary-General of the United Nations United Nations Antonio Guterres, to say last week (we are approaching the point of no return) ».
Guterres’ statement came at the beginning of a meeting of scientists and diplomats from 195 countries in Interlaken, Switzerland, to draft a synthesis report summarizing nearly a decade of published science on the impacts and course of global warming, and the tools available to prevent climate catastrophe.
And the diplomats finished (Sunday) evening drafting the report in 10,500 pages written by more than a thousand scientists, and the “Summary for Policy Makers”, prepared in 30 pages of this report, indicates that “the world is not on the right track.”
Allam told Asharq Al-Awsat that, “Since the last synthesis report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2014, scientists have determined that with an average increase in the Earth’s surface temperature of 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels so far, the planet is witnessing climate changes.” Unusual, but the current trends, revealed in the current report, indicate that the world is on course for a 1.6-degree increase.
And he adds, “With the new developments, we may need to approve new commitments in (Cop 28) from the major industrial countries that cause the most emissions, by setting a clear and specific date to reach net zero emissions, and the Copenhagen conference, and the events that follow, will be a good occasion to do that.” So we don’t reach the point of no return.
The point of no return set by the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 is exceeding the two-degree barrier, at which point no mitigation attempts will be fruitful, even if the industrialized countries wanted to solve the problem at that time.
Allam says, “We have to imagine what will happen if the temperature rises to this rate, and we have a harsh experience in 2022 that can be measured, as we witnessed disasters caused by climate change, while we have not yet reached the rate of increase of two degrees.”
And in 2022, “climate change will lead to heat waves in South America and South Asia, floods in Nigeria and Pakistan, and droughts in Western Europe and the United States,” Alam explains.

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In conclusion, the Copenhagen Ministerial Climate Conference has laid the groundwork for the upcoming COP 28 summit in Dubai. The meeting, which was chaired by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and appointed COP 28 president Sultan Al Jaber, addressed key issues related to climate change adaptation, emissions mitigation, and financing losses and damages. Experts are hoping that this conference will pave the way for tangible results in COP 28, which will be held under the joint Egyptian-Emirati presidency. With the world not on track to meet the Paris Climate Agreement’s goals and the point of no return looming, it’s crucial for major industrial countries to set concrete goals and commit to net-zero emissions. The Copenhagen conference and events that follow offer a good opportunity for this, and we must act now to avoid the disastrous consequences of climate change.