Sharm El-Sheikh, Nov 20 (TIWN): The 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) will close at least one day later than expected as climate talks continued on Saturday, with the Egyptian Presidency calling for negotiators to “shift gears” so an agreement can be reached on the remaining sticking points.

While the conference saw over 35,000 people roaming over the past two weeks, the feeling was quite different on the closing day on Friday evening.

An extended plenary discussion has been agreed for midnight on Saturday, with a formal announcement of any final text expected a day later.

Climate negotiators told IANS that five texts are still live. The cover text, finance, mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage and the design of carbon markets are still causing problems.

In every track, the debate between countries almost seems to be where it was following the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, says a negotiator.

Who’s saying what?

Saudi Arabia is still talking about ignoring the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and zero transparency carbon offsets, the US is still talking about what it is against but not what it’s for, China isn’t saying anything at all beyond its talking point on the immorality of western countries supporting fossil fuel phase out while increasing fossil fuel use in the face of the war induced energy crisis.

India has moved up the fossil-fuel phase out agenda, but not landed it, and the EU attempted to flip the script with their Loss and Damage proposal which made agreement on a facility dependent on ambitious mitigation and broadening the definition of who should supply money to fill it — aka the donor base.