COP27: We are there

To mark the start of COP27, Islamic Relief’s Senior Advisor on Poverty Reduction, Jamie Williams, sets the scene for the annual event, which seeks to accelerate international efforts to confront the climate crisis.

Through diligent and tireless work over the past 5 years Islamic Relief will see its priorities and positions well exercised at COP27 starting in Egypt today.

The news will be full of the personalities. Statesmen and women, kings and queens, celebrities and activists attending or not attending the event. Social media and newsfeeds will be full of their high words and good calls, hypocrisies, and empty gestures.

But hard work will also be being done away from the spotlight. Islamic Relief will be closely following developments in the negotiations rooms where the vital need for international agreement on climate action will be realised.

On the agenda

The issues will, as ever, centre around saving life on the planet from the untold destruction of a two-and-more-degree temperature rise by eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. The newly urgent cause of addressing the loss and damage resulting from devastating weather events will also be discussed, and we can hope, acted upon.

But also high on the agenda this time, given much more prominence by the African continental hosts but also driven by the efforts of Islamic Relief and its allies, will be serious consideration of climate adaptation.

This reflects the work that Islamic Relief has been doing in the most affected countries with the most vulnerable and marginalised people over many years. We have been persistent and forceful in insisting that adaptation takes its proper place in the priorities of negotiators and those who seek to influence them.

No time for delay

We hope that this COP will see steady progress, patient and deliberate. But it needs to be urgent enough so that by COP28, held in United Arab Emirates, the world will be ready to take transformative steps.

People the world over need to lessen their vulnerability and ensure their capacity and resilience to the tests they face now and in the warming future.

There is no time for further delay.

Read Islamic Relief’s new Climate Policy here. Islamic Relief is committed to helping communities adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. Please help us continue this increasingly vital work. Donate now.