Over the last three decades, diplomats from around the world have convened 26 times at the annual Conference of the Parties to plot out their fight against climate change. On Sunday, they will begin the latest such gathering, COP27, in Egypt. It is well timed, coming in the middle of an active hurricane season and after a summer when heat waves broke records across the world, a drought in Africa put 22 million people at risk of starvation, and floods submerged one-third of Pakistan.