‘The world is on a highway to climate hell’

Whether we choose to believe it or not, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told dozens of leaders that gathered, on Monday, for international climate talks that the world is “on a highway to climate hell.”

He also urged the two biggest polluting countries, the United States and China, to work together to avert it, saying they must “cooperate or perish.”

The COP27 summit, this year’s annual United Nations climate conference, is being held in Egypt and comes as experts and leaders have raised increasing alarm that time is running out to avert catastrophic increases in temperature.

However, the fire and brimstone warnings may not have had the desired effect because of other issues such as the Ukraine war and the mid-term elections, which are on the minds of many.

There will be more than 100 world leaders speaking at the conference over the next few days and most of the focus will be on national leaders telling their stories of climate disaster devastation. The meeting will culminate with a speech, today, by Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Sharif, whose country experienced summer floods that caused at least $40 billion in damage and displaced millions of people.

“Climate change will never stop without our intervention . ... Our time here is limited and we must every second that we have,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi told his fellow leaders.

Guterres wasn’t so gentle in his delivery. He said the world “is on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.” He called for a new pact between rich and poor countries to make deeper cuts in emissions with financial help and phasing out of coal in rich nations, by 2030 — and elsewhere, by 2040.

“Humanity is a choice: cooperate or perish,” Guterres said in an NPR report. “It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact — or a Collective Suicide Pact. Today’s urgent crises cannot be an excuse for backsliding or greenwashing.”

But the conference comes amid bad timing, as mid-term Election Day, is today. In addition, leaders of India and China, the biggest emitters of emissions, seemed to have skipped the climate talks. In their places are underlings who are there to negotiate.

President Joe Biden is also arriving to the talks later than most others.

He’ll make a stop on his way to Bali, where the leaders of the world’s 20 wealthiest nations will meet for a powerful-only club confab.

It would appear that those responsible for the most pollution have opted to not attend the climate talks, which is unfortunate. They seem to be more interested in their political agenda than the environment.