Planet heading toward climate chaos: UN chief
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 5, (AP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Thursday that the planet is heading toward irreversible “climate chaos” and urged global leaders at the upcoming climate summit in Egypt to put the world back on track to cut emissions, keep promises on climate financing and help developing countries speed their transition to renewable energy.
The UN chief said the 27th annual Conference of the 198 Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change - better known as COP27 - “must be the place to rebuild trust and re-establish the ambition needed to avoid driving our planet over the climate cliff.”
He said the most important outcome of COP27, which begins Nov. 6 in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, is to have “a clear political will to reduce emissions faster.”
That requires a historical pact between richer developed countries and emerging economies, Guterres said. “And if that pact doesn’t take place, we will be doomed.”
In the pact, the secretary-general said, wealthier countries must provide financial and technical assistance along with support from multilateral development banks and technology companies - to help emerging economies speed their renewable energy transition.
Guterres said that in the last few weeks, reports have painted “a clear and bleak picture” of global-warming greenhouse gas emissions still growing at record levels instead of going down 45% by 2030 as scientists say must happen.
The landmark Paris agreement adopted in 2015 to address climate change called for global temperatures to rise a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial times, and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Guterres said greenhouse gas emissions are now on course to rise by 10%, and temperatures are on course to rise by as much as 2.8 degrees Celsius under present policies by the end of the century.
“And that means our planet is on course for reaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible and forever bake in catastrophic temperature rise,” the secretarygeneral warned.
Goal
He said the 1.5 degree goal “is in intensive care” and “in high danger,” but it’s still possible to meet it. “And my objective in Egypt is to make sure that we gather enough political will to make this possibility really moving forward,” the UN chief said.
“COP27 must be the place to close the ambition gap, the credibility gap and the solidarity gap,” Guterres said. “It must put us back on track to cutting emissions, boosting climate resilience and adaptation, keeping the promise on climate finance and addressing loss and damage from climate change.”
Rich countries, especially the United States, have emitted far more than their share of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, data shows. Poor nations like Pakistan, where recent floods left a third of the country under water, have been hurt far more than their share of global carbon emissions.
Loss and damage has been talked about for years, but richer nations have often balked at negotiating details about paying for past climate disasters, like Pakistan’s flooding this summer.
“Loss and damage have been the always-postponed issue,” Guterres said. “There is no more time to postpone it. We must recognize loss and damage and we must create an institutional framework to deal with it.”
The secretary-general said Thursday that “getting concrete results on loss and damage is the litmus test of the commitment of the governments to close all of these gaps.”
“COP27 must lay the foundations for much faster, bolder climate action now and in this crucial decade, when the global climate fight will be won or lost,” Guterres said.
The UN climate summit is back in Africa after six years and four consecutive Europe-based conferences. It’s been branded as the “African COP”, with officials and activists hoping the conference’s location will mean the continent’s interests are better represented in climate negotiations.
Hosts Egypt say the meeting represents a unique opportunity for Africa to align climate change goals with the continent’s other aims, like improving living standards and making countries more resilient to weather extremes. Organizers expect over 40,000 participants, the highest number ever for a climate summit on the continent.
Ever since the conference’s first iteration in Berlin in 1995, the UN climate summit continues to rotate annually among the five UN classified regions: Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, central and eastern Europe, and western Europe. It’s the fifth time that an African nation has held the UN climate summit, with Morocco, South Africa and Kenya all serving as former hosts.
The first African summit, held in Marrakech in 2001, passed landmark accords on climate funding and made other key decisions on land use and forestry. The following three meetings on the continent had some success on issues like adapting to climate change, technology and sowing the seeds for the Paris Agreement in 2015 years earlier. Marrakech is also the last African city to host the event, having hosted a second COP in 2016, that aimed to implement some of the Paris goals.
Agreement
The Paris Agreement, considered a major success of the UN climate summits, saw nations agree to limit warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), with an aim of curbing it to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
And although experts don’t expect agreement between countries to reach the same scale as Paris, hopes on the continent are high for the upcoming conference.
Mithika Mwenda, who heads the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, told The Associated Press that the summit “presents a unique opportunity to place Africa at the center of global climate negotiations” and hoped the conference “truly delivers for the African people.”
Mwenda said that the “special needs and circumstances” of the continent need to be considered as it attempts to both increase access to electricity for millions of people while addressing climate change and limiting the use of fossil fuels.
He added negotiations must prioritize how vulnerable countries will adapt to climate change, address compensation from high-polluting countries to poorer ones, known as “loss and damage”, and seek avenues for financing for both a move to cleaner energy and building resilience to climate change. Many developing countries look to the US and much of Europe, who have contributed the largest share of emissions over time, to pay for damage caused by climate change.
So far, pledges by rich countries on climate finance, such as the $100 billion-a-year promise to help poorer nations meets their climate goals, have not been met. The Egyptian organizers said the summit should focus on how countries can implement pledges made in previous years.
“Africa’s hopes for COP27 is that there has to be progress on a new goal on financing,” said Jean-Paul Adam, who heads the climate change division at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, adding there needs to be “clarity as to what will be provided as grants and what will be provided as concessional loans and the remainder being dealt with through prudential private sector investment.”