John Kerry, the top U.S. envoy at this year\u2019s U.N. climate talks in Egypt, has tested positive for COVID-19, a spokesperson said late Friday night, another potential setback for negotiations that were already going into overtime with no result in sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe is fully vaccinated and boosted and experiencing mild symptoms. He is working with his negotiations team and foreign counterparts by phone to ensure a successful outcome of COP27,\u201d spokesperson Whitney Smith wrote in a statement late Friday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kerry\u2019s illness was sure to add to worries about the negotiations, which had been scheduled to end Friday. A former U.S. senator and secretary of state, Kerry has deep relationships with leaders around the world and carries a lot of weight in international talks. His meetings in Sharm el-Sheikh with China\u2019s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua were closely watched for signs that the world\u2019s two biggest polluters might agree a deal that would boost the overall talks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Negotiations, at least those in public, hit a lull Friday afternoon as news conferences and plenaries were postponed or cancelled. Diplomats said they hoped for late night progress and changed airline reservations so talks could continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delegates said there was some headway being made, especially on the most difficult sticking point. That\u2019s the issue of rich industrialized nations providing money to vulnerable countries suffering from \u2018loss and damage\u2019 as a result of climate-related disasters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re in for a bit of a long haul,\u201d World Resources Institute international climate director David Waskow said. \u201cLoss and damage sits at the center in terms of what needs to be done to get this over the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The United States appeared isolated in opposing a dedicated loss and damage fund after the European Union produced a surprise offer on the issue Thursday.<\/strong> But a State Department official confirmed that negotiations on the issue were ongoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A group of developing nations known as G-77 and China have insisted on a fund being established at the meeting and remained outwardly united on the issue late Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other delegates at the talks expressed hope that a deal might still be possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are very busy and they\u2019re making some progress and they\u2019ve gotten some clarity on all positions,\u201d Molwyn Joseph, who spoke on behalf of small island states, told The Associated Press. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is the possibility that we could get an outcome, but also it could fall over at the last minute,\u201d said New Zealand\u2019s Climate Change Minister James Shaw. \u201cAnd I think if that happened, it would be a real shame because this is as close (on loss and damage) as we\u2019ve ever been before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Climate activist Nakeeyat Dramani Sam of Ghana chided delegates at this year\u2019s U.N. climate talks<\/strong>, saying they would act faster to rein in global warming if they were her age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is an emergency,\u201d the 10-year-old told negotiators, holding a sign that read \u201cPayment Overdue\u201d. \u201cIf all of you were to be young people like me, wouldn\u2019t you have already agreed to do what is needed to save our planet?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But after receiving a standing ovation, it was back to nations squabbling over several thorny issues, with the Egyptian presidency acknowledging that the talks will go into overtime on Saturday, if not longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTime is not on our side,\u201d said Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry. Speaking as the summit\u2019s chair, he pledged to try to find common ground going forward. \u201cThe global community is looking to us to be bold and ambitious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EU proposal<\/strong> on \u2018loss and damage\u2019 payments Thursday would require emerging economies such as China \u2014 the second biggest historic polluter after the U.S.<\/strong> \u2014 to contribute to the fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re making clear that Europe is on the side of the most vulnerable states,\u201d German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said. \u201cOthers can now show which side they are on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EU proposal would also require stepped up efforts on reducing, or \u2018mitigating,\u2019 greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming. It also adopts a call to phase down all fossil fuels \u2014 a measure first proposed by India and a dramatic step up from previous commitments to just phase down coal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unless emissions are cut more steeply, \u201cno money in the world could pay for the damages and losses of the future,\u201d Baerbock said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EU climate chief Frans Timmermans said Friday that the bloc\u2019s proposal on funding for loss and damage and mitigation is \u201ca final offer\u201d that seeks to \u201cfind a compromise\u201d between countries as negotiators work out a way forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The environmental advocacy group Action Aid called the proposal a \u201cwolf in sheep\u2019s clothing\u201d because it doesn\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EU plan was a counter to a proposal made by the Group of 77 and China, which would create a fund but only require developed nations to contribute, excepting top polluters China and India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China, which had been quiet during much of the talks, and Saudi Arabia both said the money for a loss and damage fund shouldn\u2019t come from them. Developed countries should foot the bill, China said. Both also insisted that the 2015 Paris Agreement that aims to limit global warming to an ambitious 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) increase should not be altered, which can be interpreted as not strengthening efforts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A senior official from the Maldives voiced growing frustration at the way vulnerable countries keep getting caught up in battles between more powerful nations at the talks, even as their situation gets increasingly dire due to climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSmall island states have just 86 months and we\u2019re already feeling it,\u201d the official said, referring to scientists\u2019 calculations that greenhouse gas emissions have to be halved by 2030. \u201cWe can\u2019t be sandwiched between global powers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Friday\u2019s draft of the overarching decision on the outcome of the talks, issued by the Egyptian presidency, includes some vague references to reform to multilateral development banks but did not include or make reference to the detailed Bridgetown Initiative<\/strong> on financial reform from <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Kerry, the top U.S. envoy at this year\u2019s U.N. climate talks in Egypt, has tested positive for COVID-19, a spokesperson said late Friday night, another potential setback for negotiations that were already going into overtime with no result in sight. \u201cHe is fully vaccinated and boosted and experiencing mild symptoms. He is working with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":27481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7603,9951,6850,10494,4294,9330,11941,3862,9386,4024,8413,5222,5200,5262,5663,9198,5049,4066,159,6621,9505,1195,5345,6665,9643,3577,5491,192,8604,12773,5440,5910,10954,8577,4054,5721,13140,9833,5612,12187,12085,8000,5187,1253,7039,7574,8160,1364,9162,6082,8547,7294,7231,9262,6348,3954,9656,10415,36,594,5140],"class_list":["post-27480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-activist","tag-age","tag-aid","tag-airline","tag-and-india","tag-banks","tag-bill","tag-climate-change","tag-coal","tag-common","tag-cop27","tag-covid","tag-covid-19","tag-cut","tag-diplomats","tag-economies","tag-egypt","tag-el","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-foreign-minister","tag-fuels","tag-fund","tag-future","tag-gas","tag-ghana","tag-global-community","tag-increase","tag-india","tag-initiative","tag-international","tag-john-kelly","tag-kelly","tag-losses","tag-maldives","tag-meeting","tag-money","tag-n","tag-nations","tag-negotiations","tag-new-zealand","tag-paris","tag-phone","tag-presidency","tag-saudi","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-scientists","tag-senator","tag-sheikh","tag-symptoms","tag-union","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-will","tag-wolf","tag-work","tag-world","tag-who","tag-young"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}