COP27, the latest UN climate change summit which was held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, has been condemned for failing to summon an adequate response to the escalating climate crisis. Negotiators did manage to preserve a commitment made in Paris in 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5°C. But emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which rose by 1% globally in 2022, mean the temperature at which Earth will eventually stabilise is slipping out of humanity’s control.

“The world could still, theoretically, meet its goal of keeping global warming under 1.5°C, a level many scientists consider a dangerous threshold,” says Peter Schlosser, a professor of Earth and environmental sciences at Arizona State University. “Realistically, that’s unlikely to happen.”

"Attempts at the climate talks to get all countries to agree to phase out coal, oil, natural gas and all fossil fuel subsidies failed. And countries have done little to strengthen their commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the past year,” Schlosser says.

The burning of fossil fuels accounted for 86% of all greenhouse gas emissions between 2011 and 2021 according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. The consensus on eliminating them at Sharm El-Sheikh remained frozen from negotiations in Glasgow a year earlier, where countries could only agree to “phase down unabated coal power” and “eliminate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”.

Fossil fuel industry dominated

The stalemate over addressing the primary cause of climate change is partly a result of developments which have strained energy supply and affordability during the past two years, say Fergus Green, a lecturer in political theory and public policy at UCL, and Harro van Asselt, a professor of climate law and policy at the University of Eastern Finland.

But more significant is the entrenched power of the fossil fuel industry, which was well represented in Egypt, the pair say.

“Large oil and gas producers are profiting handsomely from current market prices and have lobbied governments to permit them to explore and drill for yet more oil and gas.

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