This year’s reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have made clear that climate change already causes widespread and devastating impacts on nature and people, and they are expected to get worse with every fraction of a degree of warming. The reports also emphasized that unless emissions are sharply reduced quickly across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5°C will become impossible – with catastrophic effects.

Africa, which will host COP27 in Egypt, is one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in the world. African countries, many of which are among the world’s least developed, have little capacity to adapt to the impacts of climate change. At the same time, they generate less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

These facts combined makes clear why the focus of this COP is clearly on adaptation, implementation and finance as a means to low carbon development and effective adaptation to climate change.

Climate finance will continue to be a contentious issue at COP27. Broken promises have contributed to deteriorating trust between developing and developed countries. Not only did developed countries fall far short of the $100 billion goal in 2020, they also failed to deliver balanced support to adaptation, heavily favoring mitigation.

Vulnerable countries (especially least-developed countries and small island states) continue to face significant barriers to access funding. Developing countries question whether developed countries are over-counting their commitments. They have also expressed frustration over the rapid mobilization of funding for the Covid-19 response and now the war in Ukraine, wondering why developed countries are unable to muster a similar sense of urgency for climate change.

This deteriorating trust between parties imperils the Paris Agreement. The $100 billion goal was vital to bringing developing countries into the deal and the perceived lack of accountability for financial commitments undermines the agreement’s overall credibility. Furthermore, many national climate action plans known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are “conditional” on financial support. In other words, many developing countries cannot and will not reduce emissions without the promised support.

Given this distrust, what would a good outcome at COP look like? First, we would see progress in the technical discussions on the long-term goal (which will go into effect in 2025). Many hoped these discussions would help countries rebuild trust by focusing on development of a more “sophisticated” goal. Unfortunately, both developed and developing countries feel the process has yet to break new ground. A good outcome would show convergence on what the goal should look like (aside from a higher number).

Second, we would see follow-through on commitments from Glasgow. Developed countries demonstrating progress toward the $100 billion, and especially toward the commitment to double support for adaptation by 2025, would help restore some trust.

Finally, an emerging topic is the role of the UN in helping to align the overall financial system with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Countries committed to this in the Paris Agreement under Article 2.1(c), but there has been little discussion to date about what this means or how to do it. The EU is pushing to focus on this. The issue is particularly important in light of recent backsliding from the private sector on net-zero commitments made in Glasgow. A good outcome here would provide some clarity on the role of the UN in steering the private sector to reduce emissions and enable adaptation.