Our time in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt has come to close and I’m admittedly still processing all that I experienced during this incredible week. In my next blog post I’ll give some insights into what this experience means for my understanding of the most pressing climate issues and how it has influenced my future career plans. In the meantime, I’ll start by providing some details and opinions about the experience itself. I’ve found it challenging to describe COP27 without breaking it into its parts. Below are what I consider the three main faces of COP27:

The Trade Show

Most of the physical space at COP was dedicated to the pavilions. These were detailed booths that represented countries, industries, and advocacy groups. These pavilions varied in size, purpose, and amenities but all were there to promote what they were doing to tackle the climate crisis. Much like a trade show, each pavilion hosted events, discussions, and panels that explored and promoted priority climate issues. For example, the U.S. Pavilion hosted an event on decarbonization progress and planning, the Climate Justice Pavilion hosted a panel on increasing access to climate science, and the Ocean Pavilion hosted a discussion on deep-sea mining. These are just three of the hundreds of events that took place during Week 2, which served to elevate the voices of advocates, government officials, industry leaders, and many others. My two main takeaways from the pavilions were as follows: 1) climate action can and must occur at every level of government from local to global; and 2) there is no shortage of solutions available, the challenge is the lack of buy-in and funding required for implementation at scale.

The Networking

It’s no surprise that COP27 is a prime location for meeting, conversing, and networking. After all, COP brings together thousands of like-minded climate leaders from across the world, most of whom are invested in finding collaborative solutions to address climate change. It is, however, hard to stress the sheer amount of networking that occurs during these two weeks. These conversations happen in every corner of COP. In line for coffee, washing your hands in the bathroom, in the airport, on the bus, at the breakfast buffet of your hotel… quite literally everywhere. At the end of the week my voice was ragged, and my purse was stuffed full of business cards. However, it was undeniably energizing and humanizing to see so many of our global climate leaders in the same place and willing to engage with young climate policy practitioners like myself.

The Negotiations

The primary purpose of COP is to facilitate international negotiations on key issues like carbon markets and loss and damages. Although these negotiations sometimes get lost in the excitement of the side events and pavilions, these negotiations are truly the main event, and we were fortunate to witness how these negotiations can yield measurable results. The most high-profile action item of this year’s negotiations was the establishment of the loss and damages fund, where many of the world’s wealthiest countries will provide funding to help developing nations, who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, pay for damages caused by acute and slow-onset climate impacts like floods and sea-level rise. The establishment of this fund is significant for three reasons: 1) the fund provides direct financial support under UN mechanisms; 2) the fund further acknowledges the disproportionate climate burden placed on developing countries with small carbon footprints; and 3) the fund starts to shift the conversation from planning to implementation. While this fund is just a fraction of what’s required to address the impacts of climate change, it is critical start that signals to the global community that the climate crisis is an issue that requires timely financial and technical support driven by high-emitting, wealthy nations.