World in crisis a grim backdrop for UN climate talks
Envoys from around the globe gathered Sunday in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for talks on tackling climate change amid a multitude of competing crises
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt -- Envoys from around the globe gathered Sunday in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for talks on tackling climate change amid a multitude of competing crises, including the war in Ukraine, high inflation, food shortages and an energy crunch.
Notching up a first small victory, negotiators agreed after two frantic days of preliminary talks to formally discuss the question of vulnerable nations receiving money for the loss and damage they've suffered from climate change. The issue has weighed on the talks for years, with rich nations including the United States pushing back against the idea of climate reparations.
“The fact that it has been adopted as an agenda item demonstrates progress and parties taking a mature and constructive attitude towards this," said the U.N.'s top climate official, Simon Stiell.
“This is a difficult subject area. It’s been floating for thirty plus years,” he said. "I believe it bodes well.”
The decision was also welcomed by civil society groups.
“At long last, providing funding to address losses and damages from climate impacts is on the agenda of the U.N. climate negotiations,” said Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute.
But he cautioned that participants “still have a marathon ahead of us before countries iron out a formal decision on this central issue.”
German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan, who led negotiations on the issue together with Chile in the run-up to the talks, said the agreement could help negotiators also make “serious progress” on the issue of reducing emissions.
The outgoing chair of the talks, British official Alok Sharma, said countries had made considerable progress at their last meeting in Glasgow in keeping alive the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century.
Experts say that chances of meeting that target, agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accord, is fast slipping away though. Already, temperatures around the world have increased by about 1.2 C (2.2 F) since pre-industrial times
Sharma warned that other global crises meant international efforts to curb climate change were being “buffeted by global headwinds."
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s brutal and illegal war in Ukraine has precipitated multiple global crisis, energy and food insecurity, inflationary pressures and spiraling debt,” said Sharma. “These crises have compounded existing climate vulnerabilities and the scarring effects of the pandemic.”
“As challenging as our current moment catastrophe,” said Sharma. “We must find the ability to focus on more than one thing at once.