COP27 Climate Talks In Jeopardy As EU Ministers Threaten Walkout Over Weak Deal

World leaders have gathered for the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Egypt to discuss the planet's future. 

On Saturday, countries struggled to reach an agreement, with some threatening to walk away if negotiators failed to make progress on fighting climate change.

Officials from the 27-country European Union said they were worried about a lack of progress overnight and even the possibility of backsliding from parts of the COP26 climate deal agreed in Glasgow, Scotland, last year.

EU Climate Policy Chief Frans Timmermans said," All [EU] ministers ... are prepared to walk away if we do not have a result that does justice to what the world is waiting for - namely, that we do something about this climate crisis."

Timmermans said that the EU is "worried about some of the things we have seen and heard" in recent hours, which he noted jeopardizes the global goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

Also Read: Union Pacific Details Efforts to Address Climate Change

"The text isn't moving us forward on mitigation ambition from where we were in Glasgow," said David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute's international climate initiative, according to Bloomberg. 

"But where we have seen a shift here and where we are going beyond Glasgow is on loss and damage, and I don't think that should be lost in the mix. So that is an important step forward," he added. 

According to the report, the U.K. said that the current text of the agreement threatened to take climate action backward from Glasgow, indicating that progress on mitigation would be necessary before the deal could be signed. 

Meanwhile, Dutch climate minister Rob Jetten has said that many countries were unhappy at the lack of progress on commitments to cut emissions.

"It's simply not good enough. We are still waiting for some texts, but it feels like we are backtracking on Glasgow, which will be unacceptable," Jetten said. 

Photo: Governor Jay Inslee on flickr.