Climate summit ends with crucial decisions left to future years

For a few minutes on Saturday evening, it seemed as if the COP27 climate conference was concluding. Phones buzzed with notifications of newly uploaded draft treaty documents. These indicated a consensus on major issues like loss and damage, which had dominated the headlines since the summit’s opening, and had delayed the close by an extra day. Observers and journalists appeared relieved. Some clicked group photos and cheered. The UN climate secretariat even scheduled a YouTube live stream of the closing meeting.

“We’re tired, we just want to end this and go home,” a European negotiator had told me earlier, standing …