The US dominated COP27 today as US President Joe Biden visited the two-week-long international climate summit in Egypt for ‘Decarbonisation Day’.
“Folks, it’s going to take all of us”, President Biden announced in his speech, saying that every nation had to do its part in order to permanently bend the emissions curve, and announcing new US support of $100m for adaptation. The Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark US climate bill passed earlier this year would “unleash a new era of clean energy and economic growth”, the president went on to say, echoing comments of US national climate advisor Ali Zaidi who described in an interview with Bloomberg that “100s of millions of metric tonnes of opportunity” would result from the transition. “We are proving that good climate policy is good economic policy”, President Biden stated, describing how the US is the first government to require that major federal suppliers disclose their emissions and climate risk and set targets for themselves that are aligned with the Paris Agreement.
Elsewhere at the summit countries launched a package of 25 new collaborative actions under a ‘Breakthrough Agenda’, a masterplan to accelerate decarbonisation of five major sectors - power, road transport, steel, hydrogen and agriculture. Under the agenda, governments representing over half of global GDP set out 12-month action plan to help make clean technologies cheaper and more accessible everywhere.
In other news signatories to the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action agreed to a set of targets including halving emissions by 2030, switching to low-carbon materials and scaling renewable energy across their supply chain.
COP27 continues with Adaptation & Agriculture Day on 12 November, and will resume on Monday 14 November with Gender Day. You can find the full agenda for the conference’s thematic days here. Chartered Accountants Ireland will continue to bring you updates for the event.
You can find all our COP27 updates, information, guidance and supports to help members understand sustainability and meet the challenges it presents in our online Sustainability Centre.