"All this is new in the experience of the Earth.

It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways. 

The speaker was referring to the “prospect of irretrievable damage to the atmosphere, to the oceans, to Earth itself”, the “menacing” and “insidious danger” of global warming and climate change.

'What hysterical globalist-agenda tripe,' the climate change naysayers would say, reading these words. 'They undoubtedly were uttered by leftists like Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg or Ugandan climate justice activist Vanessa Nakate...' 

Those naysayers would be wrong. 

The words were those of the so-called Iron Lady, the darling of both the intellectual and populist right, Margaret Thatcher, at the UN in 1989. 

The champion of unfettered free markets, capitalism, and lax regulation was on board with trying to save the world’s population from the ravages of climate change 33 years ago, but here we are at the 27th iteration of the Conference of the Parties (Cop) in Egypt, still way off target when it comes to a global consensus on what needs to be done to stave off the worst.

You would think that mass wildfires, droughts, floods, and heatwaves as a now regular occurrence in the world’s richest economies would be enough to call a halt to the worst excesses of fossil-fuel reliance, but greenhouse gas emissions are still rising, hitting record levels in 2021, and set to do something similar in 2022.

If we think we have it bad in the wealthiest nations and political blocs such as the EU, we don’t know how good we have it compared to small island nations and vulnerable countries that take battering after battering from relentless extremes of weather.

Talk in political, scientific, and business circles is that the Cop27 event in Sharm el-Sheikh will have less political razzmatazz than Cop26 in Glasgow, when Boris Johnson took centre stage to latch onto the likes of David Attenborough to say all the right things about the urgency of climate change.

The Egypt event will be more workmanlike, policy-driven, evidence-led, and firmer in executing targets. 

In other words, there was a lot of lofty language in Glasgow, but now it is time for implementation and putting plans into real action after Sharm el-Sheikh. The jury is out on that one.

The week before Cop27 started, new British prime minister Rishi Sunak indicated he would give Egypt a skip because he had more pressing issues at home. Encouragingly, the political realisation that he would look rather silly if he was not in attendance seemed to focus the mind that this event is indeed consequential, or at least it should be.

According to website Carbon Brief, there is “mounting pressure on developed countries to provide more climate finance, after they failed to hit the $100bn target originally set for 2020”. 

These calls come alongside a push for a new finance facility to fund the loss and damage resulting from climate change, Carbon Brief adds.

The UN defines climate finance as “local, national or transnational financing — drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing — that seeks to support mitigation and adaptation actions that will address climate change”, particularly for vulnerable countries.

The top seven emitters — China, the EU, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, and the US — plus international transport, accounted for 55% of global emissions in 2020. Collectively, G20 members — 19 of the world’s biggest economies plus the EU — are responsible for 75%, according to latest UN data.

It seems incredible that vulnerable countries should have to lobby for more funding and assistance as giant economies exacerbate the problems. Loss and damage refers to the term the UN uses in climate negotiations regarding the consequences of climate change beyond what people can adapt to.

Scientific experts say loss and damage simply must play a major part in Cop27 and it could end up being the Egyptian event’s legacy if the hopes are realised. That is a big if. Currently, it is not even certain to be on the agenda, as last-minute negotiations are teased out.

This would be a grave blow to world ambitions on climate change, a monumental failure of responsibility, and ammunition for the naysayers’ stance that Cop events are little more than a talking shop.