While COP27 is an important moment for governments and the private sector to take stock on progress in combating climate change, it’s also an opportunity more broadly to meet, debate and commit to making the changes needed. It's a chance to listen, learn and find out more about the innovative ways we might solve some of these climate problems, while being reminded, yet again, that time is running out to do so.

There were hundreds of stands, venues, conversations and people who were all looking to connect and collaborate. With over a week more of negotiations to come and an overriding feeling of cautious optimism, it’s difficult to distil just a few takeaways. Overall the mood is much less forgiving of commitments without action and the loss and damage debate is now very real. The question is, how much can ever compensate for the losses that countries and their populations have already endured and will suffer given that more damage to the climate is occurring each day that passes. Other notable takeaways include:

The link between health and climate is now well established

For over two years the COVID-19 crisis was at the top of the news agenda. For many, the aftershocks of living through a global pandemic continue, and what has become clear is that those who have been most impacted are also those who are most vulnerable to the impact of climate related health conditions.

According to the WHO around a third of the population worldwide relies on polluting fuels and technology to meet their daily needs. The resulting household air pollution leads to 3.2 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases. “The future of global health will depend on having better prepared, climate-resilient health systems,” Dr Maria Neira, WHO Director of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health said in a session at COP27. It’s vitally important that we protect health, families and the environment people are living in.

It makes for difficult reading but there is hope. Coalitions such as the Global Climate and Health Alliance are working for a just transition to phase out fossil fuels and the Green 10, a coalition of ten of the largest environmental organizations and networks active on the European level is working to ensure the EU protects the climate alongside human health. Various commentators, including Paul Hudson CEO of Sanofi, talked about the importance of intervening much earlier to address the upstream determinants of health such as access to green spaces, the ability to be active and health food.

You can explore more about this topic here.

Private sector finance needs to be unleashed

Hot on the list of topics at COP27 was how will the world finance some of these solutions? Conversations ranged from making the climate discourse accessible at a local level to the necessity to bringing China to the negotiating table. And of course we heard the rallying cry from Global South countries who are disproportionately affected by climate change, despite the fact the Global North is the worst offenders.

To tackle this, the UN has identified a list of projects worth US$120 billion which will help cut emissions, to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Whilst some key commitments were made this week – we’re still waiting to see where negotiations will take us.

However, there were many innovative ideas such as the Energy Transition Accelerator from the Bezos Earth Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation. This initiative enables developing-country government to issue carbon credits for emissions reductions generated by their efforts to decarbonize their national energy systems. And it seems that the main way experts expect the solutions to be solved is through just energy transition partnerships.

We heard from Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All that there are a billion people in the world with no access to energy and that, without it, people can’t live a dignified life. The investment needed to enable them to access renewable sources is really significant, and much of that will need to come from the private sector.

You can explore more about this topic here.

There’s no excuse for greenwashing

This COP is all about implementation rather than new commitments; what’s needed now is action not words. Organizations of all types and sizes must manage supply chains, down to the last mile and use the power of employees who are increasingly activist and ambassadors to inform their strategies. To truly have impact companies need to engage and communicate each step of progress transparently.

“We must have zero tolerance for net-zero greenwashing,” the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said at the launch of a new report on the issue. The report, from the UN’s High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments, outlined the 10 practical recommendations, in four key areas around environmental integrity; credibility; accountability; and the role of governments in achieving this goal. You can explore more on this here.

We need standardized ways of measuring impact that everyone can understand and get behind and we need to work together collaboratively end-to-end, in order to make ensure no one is left behind. This isn’t about inventing new standards and indicators but agreeing on which ones are most useful and making them part of how companies report. For example the World Benchmarking Alliance – whose benchmarks are based on publicly available information disclosed according to existing standards – are building a community of like-minded organizations to ensure that ESG initiatives don’t exist in a bubble but have genuine impact.

So as COP's second week gets underway, there is certainly room for optimism that progress will be made. However, there's still so much to be done and agreed and not a single moment to lose.