The delegates from almost 200 countries attending the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, staring today, and indeed the governments of participating countries, cannot blame people who have grown sceptical of their stated commitment to protecting the world from the impacts of global warming.

We have drawn that conclusion based on a number of geopolitical factors, as well as economic turmoil that have placed the world’s most powerful nations at odds with each other and are threatening further inaction by the nations most guilty of greenhouse emissions.

Relations between Washington and Beijing which, in previous times anchored breakthroughs in climate diplomacy, including the Paris Agreement in 2015, are at best wobbly, especially since August when Mrs Nancy Pelosi, the US congressional leader, visited Taiwan, thus angering China which promptly responded by shutting down bilateral climate channels.

The rift deepened last month when the American Government imposed restrictions on the sale of high-level chip technology to China.

Consider also the warning from the United Nations (UN) last week that “there is no credible pathway in place” for capping the rise in global temperatures under the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Add to that the fact that only a handful of nations have so far honoured the agreement reached at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, last year to review their carbon-cutting pledges annually and not just every five years, and you get a better picture of why scepticism on this entire issue is increasing.

Experts have told us that COP27 will boil down to three interlocking priorities — emissions, accountability, and money. The creation of a separate pool of capital for unavoidable and irreversible climate damages, they have said, could be a make-or-break issue, as poor nations are in desperate need of funds to cope with climate change impacts that are already claiming lives and sending economies plunging.

But how far this discussion will go is left to be seen, as the matter has been on the table for the past 30 years. Indeed, as Mr Simon Stiell, the UN climate change chief, told journalists last Friday: “The most vulnerable countries are tired, they are frustrated.”

The problem is that the US and the European Union, fearing open-ended reparation, have questioned the need for a separate financial framework. While that fear may be justified, Mr Stiell has expressed some optimism as he has seen a softening of positions on loss and damage.

We welcome that development, however small it may be. At the same time, we cannot overlook the results of a study commissioned by Christian Aid and released at COP26 showing that the 65 most vulnerable nations will see GDP drop 20 per cent on average by 2050 and 64 per cent by 2100 if the world heats up 2.9 degrees Celsius.

The study also pointed out that even if global temperature rises are capped at 1.5 degrees C the same countries would take a gross domestic product (GDP) hit of 13 per cent by 2050 and 33 per cent by the end of the century.

Mr Stiell has said that the Paris meeting “told us what needs to be done”, while Glasgow “defined how we need to do it”. This year’s confab, he added, “is about getting stuff done — moving from words to action”.

We couldn’t agree with him more. For, as the UN Secretary General Mr Antonio Guterres correctly said: “Our world cannot afford any more green washing, fake movers or late movers.”