What is COP27?

COP27 also known as the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference is an annual conference held by the United Nations. The goal of COP is for countries around the globe to come together and discuss climate change, more specifacally how to combat climate change.

However, the name United Nations Climate Change Conference does not get abbreviated to COP. So what does COP27 stand for? COP stands for 'Conference of Parties' and this is the 27th conference taking place. 

Where Is COP27 Held?

This year the conference was held in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt. Sharm-El-Sheik is a resort town sitting on the Red Sea. The location of the conference is decided by the host country and the host country is selected in prior years by the conference. 

Most nations from around the world will have their leaders attend the event and address the conference on their current and future actions for climate change. There are also some world leaders that didn't make an appearance including China's Xi Jinping, Russia's Vladimir Puting and India's Narendra Modi.

Why Is The Paris Agreement Important?

In 2015, during COP21, world leaders met in Paris to sign the historic Paris Agreement.

For the first time in history, all nations joined forces to commit to keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius, with a target of 1.5 degrees Celsius, preparing for the effects of climate change, and allocating sufficient resources to achieve these goals.

The Paris Agreement was born. Every additional fraction of a degree of warming will result in a significant increase in the number of lives lost and the extent of the harm done to people's livelihoods, therefore the commitment to strive for 1.5 degrees is crucial.

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are country-specific plans that outline how much each country will decrease emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement.

They decided to revisit the plan every five years with an updated version that reflected their loftiest goals at that time.