This week is when the negotiations get really serious. When you have something that hasn't been agreed by all countries, then those phrases or clauses are put within square brackets. There are huge numbers of things within square brackets at the moment. And the task of the Egyptian hosts will be to take all of those bits of text out of the square brackets and put it either into the text itself or discard it. So we will be seeing why after why I'm afraid over the next few days.
Cop27 got off to a difficult start last week. Attendees struggled with a lack of food and drink, civil society group events were curtailed, and more than 600 fossil fuel lobbyists hit the conference halls – more than the delegations of many of the most vulnerable countries combined. As we head into the second week, Madeleine Finlay hears from biodiversity reporter Patrick Greenfield about what it’s been like in Sharm el-Sheikh, and from environment editor Fiona Harvey about what’s happened so far and whether much progress is likely to be made in the final days of negotiations. Help support our independent journalism at
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