The Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan is the cover decision adopted at COP27, the UN climate conference held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022. It restated the goal of holding global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, reaffirmed the Glasgow Climate Pact's call to phase down unabated coal power and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, and emphasized accelerated action across mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, and capacity-building.
Its most-cited outcome was the political breakthrough on loss and damage: parties agreed to establish new funding arrangements, including a dedicated fund, to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. A Transitional Committee was tasked with operationalising the fund, with recommendations to be considered at COP28 in Dubai. This ended roughly three decades of resistance by wealthy emitters to a standalone loss and damage facility.
Other notable elements include:
- Launching the Mitigation Work Programme to urgently scale up mitigation ambition and implementation in this critical decade.
- Reaffirming the doubling of adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025, as urged in Glasgow.
- Acknowledging that delivering 1.5°C requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 and fall about 43% by 2030 relative to 2019, drawing on the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report.
- Calling on multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to reform practices and priorities, and to mobilise climate finance at scale.
- Highlighting the need for a transformation of the financial system, with estimates citing US$4–6 trillion per year required for a global low-carbon transition.
The plan did not strengthen language on fossil fuel phase-down beyond Glasgow, a point criticised by the EU, small island states, and many observers. Nonetheless, it is regularly cited alongside the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact as a key COP decision shaping the post-2020 climate regime.
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At COP27 in November 2022, parties adopted the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan, which created a Transitional Committee to design a dedicated loss and damage fund for vulnerable developing countries.