Highlights and images for 18 November 2022

The last scheduled day of the Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Change Conference featured continued talks and few evident outcomes. COP 27 President Sameh Shoukry acknowledged more time was required, urging parties to “shift gears again” to bring the meeting “to a close tomorrow with a balanced, ambitious outcome.”

It seemed a realistic assessment as the day continued. Negotiations on Article 6 (cooperative implementation) continued, as negotiators tried to work through the huge volume of detailed, technical work required to set the rules for future market and non-market-based mechanisms. While finance talks looked closer to agreement, with cleaner draft texts, they are not yet finalized. Some delegates seemed hesitant, waiting to see what would be in the overarching cover decisions.

These cover decisions continue to prove difficult. They can be wide ranging, because there is no mandate to rein in the aspirations of various delegations. Already 99 paragraphs long, countries spent three hours trying to add more, or delete what they couldn’t support. Seeing the desire of countries, additional written submissions were allowed until 8:00 pm. Wael Aboulmagd, COP Presidency, promised a balanced next draft, without specifying when it would be delivered. With so much input from parties, predictions of when this COP may finish began to shift from Saturday to Sunday.