The main headline from COP27: after twenty-seven years of climate negotiations, progress on actually cutting emissions is as painfully slow as ever. Meanwhile the chance of staying under 1.5C of warming is rapidly disappearing, and the impacts of climate breakdown are devastating communities around the world.

The Egyptian government saw hosting the summit as an opportunity to enhance prestige, but the international attention also shone a spotlight on its human rights abuses, with a crackdown on protesters ahead of COP27. The most powerful voice at the summit was arguably a man who who was not even in Sharm el-Sheikh, but in prison. Alaa Abd El Fattah, a British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist and writer, who has been in prison for most of the past nine years, escalated his ongoing hunger strike to stop drinking water as COP27 began.

Due to the restrictions imposed on protest in the streets of Egypt , for the first time ever, climate activists marched within the Blue Zone (governed by UN rules). Their slogan, "We have not yet been defeated" echoed the the title of Alaa Abd El Fattah's book of essays, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated. Solidarity climate protests around the world called for the freeing of Alaa and the many other political prisoners in Egypt, that there could be no climate justice without human rights.

Loss and Damage fund finally established

COP27 did produce one big win for countries on the frontline of climate breakdown. After decades of blocking by rich nations, a loss and damage fund was agreed for countries most affected by climate change to cover devastating impacts like flooding and drought. In the run up to COP27, negotiations had been needed to even get loss and damage onto the agenda. This fund is a significant win for powerful advocacy by climate-vulnerable countries and the global climate justice movement, and one which was fought over all the way.

But the new loss and damage fund is, for now, empty. The track record of rich nations on climate finance is not encouraging. Thirteen years ago in Copenhagen, rich nations pledged to provide US$100 billion a year to less wealthy nations by 2020, to help them adapt to climate change and develop sustainably. That promise was broken, not just falling short on the total amount, but also in the substance of what has been provided, which has overwhelmingly been given as loans only, rather than grant funding.

 

May Day weekend events

Glossop

A family-friendly weekend festival May Day for the Planet Friday-Monday, with events themed around the climate crisis.

Saturday 30th April

Plymouth

March and festival for Peace and Climate Justice - assemble 12pm Plymouth Guildhall, followed by a climate festival with live music, stalls and speakers at the Leadworks, Rendle Street PL1. Details

Norwich

March and Rally, with the theme 'Fighting for a Sustainable Future'. Assemble from 11am, City Hall Facebook event

Lancaster

Assemble Dalton Square, 11.30. March with music at 12pm, 1pm, rally Dalton Square.

Sunday 1st May

London 

Assemble Clerkenwell Green from 12pm, march leaves 1pm. Rally in Trafalgar Square from 2.30pm. Climate bloc meeting outside Marx Memorial Library, Facebook event

Manchester

Assemble at 11:15am in St Peter's Square, march at 11:30am to Sackville Gardens for 1pm for the festival of speeches, live music, food, drink and stalls. Bring banners, flags, family, workmates and friends. Or join the RMT Trans Pennine Express pickets at Piccadilly Fairfield Street from 9am onwards, marching at 11am to join the May Day crowd in St Peter's Square.

Bath

Rally for a Just Transition, 11am Kingsmead Square. Speakers, activities for children, music. Then from 1pm at The Bell, Walcot Street: Seize the Day performing live; Syrian veggie and vegan buffet.

Monday 2nd May

Salford

May Day march and rally from noon, meeting in Bexley Square to march to Sacred Trinity Church.

Waveney

May Day People's Festival: debates, music and art, 12-5, United Reform Church, Lowestoft Road North NR32 1HB

Email climatetradeunion@gmail.com if you'd like us to add your event

With Banners Held High 

With Banners Held High is an annual celebration of the trade union movement, first held on the 30th anniversary of the ending of the miners' strike.

The scientists of the IPCC (the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have just published their latest report, on the damage that climate breakdown is causing to humans and ecosystems. They warn that the time left to act is running out.

There could hardly be a worse time for the messages in this report to catch public attention while all eys are on bombed Ukrainian cities and fleeing refugees.

Even for those of us who think we have a good understanding of the dangers of climate change, this report is important, setting out starkly the peril we are in. 

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General, spoke out at the report's launch:

"I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this. Today's IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed leadership."

"The facts are undeniable. This abdication of leadership is criminal. The world's biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home.

But according to current commitments, global emissions are set to increase almost 14 per cent over the current decade. That spells catastrophe. It will destroy any chance of keeping 1.5 alive."

So, what does the report say?

The key messages are below, taken from the 36 page Summary for Policymakers and the IPCC's Frequently Asked Questions, which is aimed at the general public. You can also read chapters of the full report, and there's a useful in depth Q&A on the report from Carbon Brief. 

The world's most eminent scientists and academics in these fields - cautious, fact-checking, balancing evidence - are backing up what climate justice advocates have known and have been saying for years. 

We're running out of time

There is more than a 50% chance that even in the most optimistic scenarios for cutting emissions, global average temperatures will soon rise by 1.5°C or more (compared to temperatures before humans started burning fossil fuels for energy).

If the planet heats up by more than 1.5C, impacts such as wildfires, mass mortality of trees, drying of peatlands, and thawing of permafrost are likely to release additional greenhouse gases, making it even more difficult to lower global temperatures again. Some impacts will be irreversible.

How bad things get depends on what we do now and in the immediate future to cut emissions. It also depends on adaptation - taking action to protect people and ecosystems from risks which are now unavoidable (such as higher sea levels). With every fraction of a degree of global warming the risks and related losses and damages escalate.

Climate change impacts are more severe than estimated in previous IPCC assessments. The last time the IPCC reported on impacts and adaptation was back in 2014, and since then there is more evidence on the harms that climate change is already causing.

Climate change is hurting people now - especially in the Global South

Approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change 

Climate change is contributing to humanitarian crises. Climate and weather extremes are increasingly driving people to leave their homes, with small island states disproportionately affected.