World in crisis a grim backdrop for U.N. climate talks
The U.N.'s top climate official appealed to countries both to engage constructively in the negotiations and take the necessary action back home
Envoys from around the globe gathered on November 6 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.Negotiators spent a frantic two days ahead of the meeting discussing whether to formally consider the issue of loss and damage, or reparations, to vulnerable nations suffering from climate change. The issue, which has weighed on the talks for years, was agreed just hours before the meeting officially opened.In an opening speech, the head of the U.N.'s panel of climate scientist highlighted the urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of global warming."This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to save our planet and our livelihoods," said Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.ALSO READCOP27: A year on from the Glasgow climate pact, the world is burning more fossil fuels than everThe outgoing chair of the talks, British official Alok Sharma, said countries had made considerable progress at their last meeting in Glasgow, including on setting more ambitious targets for cutting emissions, finalising the rules of the 2015 Paris agreement and pledging to begin phasing out the use of coal — the most heavily polluting fossil fuel.
We kept 1.5 degrees [2.7 Fahrenheit] alive,” he said, referring to the most ambitious goal of the Paris pact, to keep temperature increase since pre-industrial times under that threshold.
Yet now those efforts were being “buffeted by global headwinds,” he warned.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin's brutal and illegal war in Ukraine has precipitated multiple global crisis, energy and food insecurity, inflationary pressures and spiralling debt,” said Mr. Sharma.
“These crises have compounded existing climate vulnerabilities and the scarring effects of the pandemic.”
However, even the most optimistic scenarios assuming countries do everything they have pledged put the world on course for 1.7 C of warming (3.1 F), he warned.
“As challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe,” said Mr. Sharma. “We must find the ability to focus on more than one thing at once.”
"How many more wake-up calls does the world to world leaders actually need,” he said, citing recent devastating floods in Pakistan and Nigeria, and historic droughts in Europe, the United States and China
His successor, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, said his office would “spare no effort" to achieve the goals of the Paris accord.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi wrote on Twitter that Egypt, as host country, was seeking to move from the “pledges phase to the implantation phase with concrete measures on the ground.”