UN talks on climate remain out of touch

Global talks on neutralising the threat of global warming began here yesterday, but their narrow focus on rules and procedures remains out of sync with the world’s climate-addled future.

Mindful of this gap, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said on Sunday that a “point-of-no-return” in the climate crisis was “in sight and hurtling towards us”.

Indeed, three decades after the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist James Hansen made headlines by telling the US Congress that global warming had begun, evidence of its dire impacts was so overwhelming that “climate denier” was synonymous with insisting the Earth is flat.

Guterres lambasted the world’s major economies, describing their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions overheating the planet as “utterly inadequate”.

“Some countries like China and Japan are signalling their unwillingness to increase ambition,” said Laurence Tubiana, chief executive officer of the European Climate Foundation and, as a former negotiator for France, a main architect of the Paris Agreement.

Nor have India, Russia or Brazil expressed enthusiasm for ratcheting up carbon-cutting pledges submitted under the 2015 treaty.

US President Donald Trump even took the US out of the deal.

But even if every nation honoured their pledges, the planet would still heat up at least 3°C above preindustrial levels, a recipe for calamity, scientists said.

The talks here, the 25th “COP” or conference of the parties in as many years, will focus on finalising rules for global carbon markets and setting up a fund to help countries already reeling from climate-enhanced heatwaves, droughts, floods and storms made worse by rising seas.

Poor and vulnerable nations are set to receive US$100 billion annually from next year to prepare for future impacts, but no concrete provisions exist yet for “loss and damage” already incurred.

Frontline negotiators describe COP25 as “technical talks” to set the stage for next year’s meeting in Glasgow, where countries must confront the gap between Paris targets and current emissions.