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Thanks to Guardian reader Nyshie Perkinson, who submitted a best dressed submission.
This is Djyba Gomes Jao, from Guinea Bissau
Djyba Gomes Jao Photograph: Nyshie Perkinson/Centre for Biological Diversity
And our Nina Lakhani, who is in the thick of fashion photography these days, has sent another submission. This is the gorgeously dressed Ninawa Inu Pereria Nunes Huni Kui from the Turtle Island Indigenous Education Network.
Ninawa Inu Pereria Nunes Huni Kui of the Turtle Island Indigenous Educational Network. Photograph: Nina Lakhani/The Guardian
Scoop: Three major rainforest nations form an alliance
Patrick Greenfield
The three major rainforest nations – Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo – have signed a strategic alliance to coordinate their conservation at the G20, The Guardian can reveal.
The agreement, signed by the administration of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro, who has overseen massive deforestation in the Amazon, says the three countries will coordinate on climate and biodiversity-related UN talks. tropical forests, focusing on finance, sustainable management and restoration.
Brazil, Indonesia and the DRC are home to 52% of the world’s remaining primary tropical forests, which are crucial to averting climate catastrophe. The new alliance says a results-based payments mechanism to reduce deforestation and keep them standing is a priority through UN climate talks.
The new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said he would try to forge a similar alliance in his campaign, with parallel talks between his team and counterparts in Indonesia and the DRC understood to be taking place .
Lula will attend COP27 on Wednesday where he is expected to discuss efforts to save the Amazon and other forests around the world.
Amazon rainforest photo: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images
Updated at 11.54 GMT
A loud Extinction Rebellion protest in Cape Town, South Africa, for Cop Water Day. They point out that business as usual for fossil fuel companies equals death.
Climate activists protest in Cape Town Photo: Esa Alexander/Reuters
Good news for bloggers everywhere, the COP presidency is quite optimistic that the negotiations will be completed on time.
Reuters reports that police chief Sameh Shoukry says the first parts of the texts will be “emerging” tonight, with “very few issues” remaining by Wednesday evening, with the publication of the “almost final” text on Thursday and a agreement made on Friday.
Our reporters on the ground have said that this is surprising, as the negotiations do not seem to be going very well.
Experts including Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr and Business Green’s James Murray responded with some glee at Shoukry’s timeline.
It’s “oh my sweet summer boy” day at the COP, I see.
— James Murray (@James_BG) November 14, 2022
hahahaha don’t you think that all COP presidencies will do it on time?
— Doug Parr (@doug_parr) November 14, 2022
Updated at 11.16 GMT
Developing countries criticize damage and loss insurance plan pushed by G7
Nina Lakhani
Loss and damage is arguably the most important and contentious issue being negotiated at Cop27, with developing and climate-vulnerable nations coming together to secure an agreement in Egypt to create a separate funding mechanism (for cover irreversible economic and non-economic costs) which can then be worked on during the following two years. But the G7 countries – historically the biggest contributors to the global greenhouse gases that cause extreme weather events and slow-onset climate disasters and have for years delayed and denied the need for a loss and damage fund – are pushing the Global Shield insurance plan as an alternative. This has not gone down well with climate justice advocates or developing countries, some of whom would be excluded for being too developed.
Harjeet Singh, head of global policy strategy at the Climate Action Network, a global network of 1800 civil society groups, criticized the Global Shield as “another distraction strategy”.
Why not create something new within the UNFCCC process that is more comprehensive and responsive to the needs of developing countries, such as loss and damage relief, rather than investing its energies in an opaque initiative outside this process that is very limiting? It’s because they want to be in control, but this is just another way to delay the progress of loss and damage… Insurance companies went bankrupt after Hurricane Katrina, and there are many other stories from the States United States and Europe from places that have become uninsurable. due to the increased frequency and intensity of climate disasters. Insurance is not the answer, this is a scam.
Teresa Anderson, ActionAid International’s global climate justice officer, described the initiative as a “distraction”. “An initiative involving northern countries subsidizing northern-owned insurance corporations should not be confused with loss and damage funding that supports communities on the front lines of the climate crisis.”
The insurance would not cover non-economic impacts such as loss of language and culture or the slow-onset impact of sea level rise and melting glaciers, instead focusing on climate impacts easier to quantify such as floods, hurricanes and wildfires.
Updated at 11.19 GMT
We’ve been reporting a lot about the lack of food in Cop (it’s been on the minds of our reporters for obvious reasons).
But my colleague Damian Carrington has discovered that vegan activists have taken advantage of the burger shortage.
Plant Based Treaty has partnered with local vegan cafe Veganist Sharm to distribute hundreds of free vegan burgers in the Green Zone to hungry delegates.
On Friday, Nilgün Engin and his team distributed 300 hamburgers in less than two hours and, by popular demand, they will return on Monday with 400 vegan hamburgers in the Parc de la Pau outside the Green Zone at 12 noon.
Plant-based Treaty campaigner Nilgün Engin said: “The dearth of plant-based food options at Cop27 is surprising given that we are at a climate summit. A third of greenhouse gas emissions come from of food and Cop27 should showcase climate-friendly plant-based food solutions rather than being part of the problem.”
There are hardly any climate-friendly plant-based meal offerings at the climate conference. The Cop27 menu includes beef, chicken, fish and dairy.
Updated at 10.40 GMT
Ruth Michaelson
One of the main topics today at Cop27 is water, a topic of particular relevance for Egypt and much of Africa, without water, which is not always discussed at Cop.
Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has said that the country’s water resources can no longer meet the needs of its growing population.
According to CNN: “In May, the Minister of Local Development announced that the country had entered a stage of ‘water poverty’ according to UN standards. The UN does not have a metric for ‘water poverty’, but by its definition a country is considered water-scarce when annual supplies fall below 1,000 cubic meters per capita, which the minister
Egypt depends on the Nile for at least 90% of its fresh water supply, along with Sudan to the south, which also relies heavily on the river, but this vital water supply is currently under threat from both climate change and ‘filling of Great Egypt. Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd), intended to supply electricity to a large part of the country.
Ethiopia, Egypt and, to some extent, Sudan have been locked in a bitter war of words over the filling of the dam’s reservoir, which Ethiopia unilaterally and secretly began after multiple rounds of of water exchange talks that went nowhere.
Gerd threatens to drastically reduce water supplies to the Blue Nile, which flows through Ethiopia and Sudan before meeting the White Nile in Khartoum. Ethiopian officials say the hydropower the dam provides is vital to its development, but others in Sudan and Egypt fear it could prove an existential threat. A Khartoum-based human rights activist said the dam risks sparking “a water war” when I interviewed him on the matter shortly before the dam went online.
Meanwhile, while Egyptian officials have spoken of the national need to conserve water, Sisi is also building a new capital in the desert outside Cairo that includes a “green river” of planted vegetation and a series of interlocking fake lakes.
Updated at 10.12 GMT
Zach Goldsmith
UK Foreign Office Climate and Nature Minister Lord Goldsmith has written a guest post for us about rainforests:
Among all the formal events, we have made a lot of progress in the forests.
For example, Indonesia’s key minister, Minister Nurbaya, has presented a very ambitious plan that involves protecting 66 million hectares of forest, restoring 9 million hectares of degraded peatlands, planting 600,000 ha of mangroves and transferring millions of ‘hectares of land to indigenous communities to take care of them. As Indonesia has said, the UK has played a really central role in this and we are committed to putting together a coalition of support.
Lula’s election in Brazil also changes everything in Latin America, and it is up to the rich world to come together to support his very ambitious vision to stop deforestation and support persecuted indigenous communities.
And we knew that all this is possible. There are many countries that already do it. Gabon, Costa Rica and many others have broken the link between economic development and environmental destruction.
Updated at 09.55 GMT
Best Dressed Cop27 Guardian Competition!
So obviously Cop27 is a crucial event for the future of the planet, and we’re discussing a lot of important and incredibly depressing issues. However, I think there is still room for some fun.
My colleague Nina Lakhani has noticed how many people on Cop are wearing stunning outfits…