We are in an era of upheaval, termed by some as a polycrisis, and Cop27 was never itself going to resolve the biggest of these – the climate emergency. Indeed, the most significant recent progress may well have already happened far from Sharm El-Sheikh, in the form of the American midterm elections and the rapprochement between the US and China, the two world’s largest emitters, on climate issues at the G20 in Bali.