UN's COP27 summit adopts climate agreement, EU, UN calls it failure

The UN's COP27 summit in Egypt adopted on Sunday a climate agreement that calls for rapid cuts in emissions in efforts to slow global warming.

Egyptian COP27 president Sameh Shoukry brought the gavel down to mark the approval of the text following marathon talks that ran through the night as wealthy nations sought tougher language on reducing emissions.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said Sunday that the COP27 climate talks had fallen short in pushing for the urgent "drastic" carbon-cutting needed to tackle global warming.

"Our planet is still in the emergency room. We need to drastically reduce emissions now and this is an issue this COP did not address," Guterres said.

The climate deal agreed at COP27 in Egypt is not a sufficient step forward, European Union climate policy chief Frans Timmermans for his part said, criticizing the commitment of some countries towards efforts to limit rising temperatures.

"This is the make or break decade, but what we have in front of us is not enough of a step forward for people and planet," Timmermans told the conference.

"It does not bring enough added efforts for major emitters to increase and accelerate their emissions cuts."

The EU had threatened to walk away from the talks if it did not get better commitments on emissions, but it did not block the final statement following marathon talks that ended early Sunday.

Timmermans pointed to the EU's decision to back the creation of a "loss and damage" fund at COP27 to compensate vulnerable nations hit by climate impacts -- an issue the bloc had opposed in the past over concerns about potential liability.

"We're faced with a moral dilemma, because this deal is not enough on mitigation," said Timmermans.

"Do we walk away and thereby kill a fund that vulnerable countries fought so hard for decades?... No. That would have been a huge mistake and a huge missed opportunity to tackle climate change," he said.