As government representatives begin to finalize the agenda for the COP27 climate change conference in Egypt next month, the UN chief told journalists in New York that the work ahead is “as immense as the climate impacts we are seeing around the world”.
Speaking to reporters in New York, as the pre-COP meeting got underway in Kinshasa, Secretary-General António Guterres laid out the worsening impacts worldwide.
“A third of Pakistan flooded. Europe’s hottest summer in 500 years. The Philippines hammered. The whole of Cuba in black-out. And here, in the United States, Hurricane Ian has delivered a brutal reminder that no country and no economy is immune from the climate crisis,” he highlighted.
And while “climate chaos gallops ahead, climate action has stalled,” he added.
Faulty maths
The top UN Official underscored the importance of COP27 while warning that the collective commitments of G20 leading industrialized nations governments are coming “far too little, and far too late”.
“The actions of the wealthiest developed and emerging economies simply don’t add up.,” he said, pointing out that current pledges and policies are “shutting the door” on limiting global temperature to 2°C, let alone meet the 1.5°C goal.
Mr. Guterres warned, “we are in a life-or-death struggle for our own safety today and our survival tomorrow,” saying there is no time for pointing fingers or “twiddling thumbs” but instead requires “a quantum level compromise between developed and emerging economies”.
“The world can’t wait,” he spelled out. “Emissions are at an all-time high and rising”.
And he said that while pursuing their own “drop-in-the-bucket initiatives” international financial institutions must overhaul their business approaches to combat climate change.
SOURCE: UN News/SLT
