A report from Australian climate tech startup Conry Tech analyses every word spoken at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt, in November 2022, and reveals finance and renewable energy dominated the event’s climate conversation, but energy efficiency and demand reduction was missing from the global climate debate.
The report, “Analysing the Language of Climate Change Politics”, runs the rule across every word spoken at the COP27 plenary sessions – 40 hours of video and more than 230,000 words from more than 2000 speakers – and shows the word finance was mentioned once every 150 words by delegates such as former US Vice President Al Gore, COP26 President Alok Sharma and COP27 President Sameh Shoukry.
The purpose of the report is to inform how climate scientists and world leaders talk about climate change and the issues most attention is devoted to.
Key findings from the report include:
- COP27 was dominated by economics, with one in every 150 words spoken relating to climate finance.
- The “loss and damage fund” was mentioned more than 300 times.
- Renewable energy and emissions reduction were a major focus, particularly solar.
- Energy conservation and efficiency, and demand reduction, was absent from the conversation.
- The Paris Agreement was the dominant COP discussion. It was mentioned every five minutes by delegates – significantly more frequently than references to the Glasgow Agreement, Kyoto Protocol, Copenhagen Accord, Madrid Agreement, Bonn Agreement and Montreal Protocol.
- “Phase out” was said 15 times compared to two references to “phase down” despite the agreed wording of the latter in reference to unabated coal power and inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels as part of the Glasgow Climate Pact from COP26 in 2021.
- Delegates emphasised damage being done to natural environment, but not the impact of urban environments.
- Floods and droughts were the most common disaster scenarios cited, with climate change described as a “matter of life and death” throughout.
- The most regularly cited topical issues were the war in Ukraine (mentioned 116 times), COVID-19 (mentioned 92 times) and the global energy crisis (mentioned 16 times).
“When world leaders discuss the most important issue of our time, the conversation is worth listening to intently,” says Conry Tech co-founder and CEO Sam Ringwaldt.
“What is said during an event such as COP can signal decades of climate action. It also tells us which issues may be missing from the public debate.
“COP27 was dominated by finance. The data shows that transitioning to renewables is consistently held to be the means of reducing emissions, to the exclusion of energy conservation or efficiency.
“We believe these play a vital role in reducing emissions and helping nations transition to renewable energy, yet it rarely features in the prevailing conversations.”
The report’s authors argue issues of energy efficiency and demand reduction need to be addressed at future COP events as nations transition to renewable energy.