We can’t cope with disasters, COP told
The world leaders who have gathered in Egypt for climate talks are under pressure to deepen cuts in emissions and financially back developing countries that are already devastated by the effects of rising temperatures.
The UN’s COP27 climate summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh is under way as many nations are facing increasingly intense natural disasters that have taken thousands of lives this year alone and cost billions of dollars.
COP27 officials urged governments to keep up efforts to combat climate change despite the economic crises linked to Russia’s war on Ukraine, an energy crunch, soaring inflation and the persistent Covid-19 pandemic.
“The fear is other priorities take precedence,” UN climate change official Simon Stiell said. The “fear is that we lose another day, another week, another month, another year – because we can’t.”
The world must slash greenhouse emissions 45 per cent by 2030 to cap global warming at 1.5C above late19th-century levels.
But current trends would see carbon pollution increase 10 per cent by the end of the decade and Earth’s surface heat up 2.8C, according to findings unveiled in recent days.
Only 29 of 194 countries have presented improved climate plans, as called for at the UN talks in Glasgow last year, Mr Stiell noted.
Some 110 heads of state and government are expected to participate in two days of talks, with the notable absence of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, whose country is the No.1 emitter of greenhouse gases.
US President Joe Biden, whose country ranks second on the top-polluters list, will join COP27 later this week after midterm elections on Tuesday that could put Republicans hostile to international action on climate change in charge of congress.
Fresh from his own election victory, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to attend the summit, with hopes high that he will protect the Amazon from deforestation.