United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the rapidly warming world is “on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator” in a characteristically dire speech yesterday.
Delivering his remarks at the start of COP27, the International Climate Summit, Guterres set the urgent tone as representatives from around the world will sit for two weeks of negotiations on how to avert the worst of a warming planet and climate change.
Guterres told the world leaders and delegates gathered at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish.”
On Sunday, the World Meteorological Organisation said the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, “fuelled by ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat.”
He once again stated that the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees is on life support and called on developed countries to take the lead.
He also called for a pact between the world’s richest and poorest countries called the Climate Solidarity Pact.
He singled out the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases in his speech. Guterres said, “The two largest economies—the United States and China—have a particular responsibility to join efforts to make this pact a reality.”
The Pact’s goals, he says, would be for countries to make an additional effort to reduce emissions this decade in line with the 1.5-degree goal, for wealthier nations and international financial institutions to assist emerging economies in speeding their green transitions, and to end dependence on fossil fuels and building of coal plants.
He added that coal should be phased out by 2030 in OECD countries and everywhere else by 2040. “It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact—or a Collective Suicide Pact,” Guterres said.
In his opening statement, he added that the globe needs progress in adaptation to climate change, with 3.5 billion people living in countries on the frontlines of a changing climate. While developed countries at COP26 in Glasgow last year promised to double adaptation to US$40 billion by 2025, he said there needs to be a roadmap on how funds would be delivered.
He called for a substantial rise in climate adaptation funding, stating that half of all climate financing should flow to adaptation as needs are set to grow to more than US $300 billion annually by 2030.
Loss and Damage, the code words crafted to avoid blame, continue to remain a contentious topic at COP27. It was formally added to the climate conference’s agenda, overcoming decades-long objections from wealthy nations like the United States and the European Union.
Guterres said in his statement, “We must acknowledge a harsh truth. There is no adapting to a growing number of catastrophic events causing enormous suffering around the world. The deadly impacts of climate change are here and now. Loss and Damage can no longer be swept under the rug.”
Small island states have been calling for this funding since 1991, while developed nations resisted talks, fearing becoming legally or financially responsible for climate change.
To fund loss and damage, Guterres asked all governments to tax the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies and redirect funding to those struggling with rising food and energy prices, as well as those suffering Loss and Damage caused by climate change.
Note: This story was produced as part of the 2022 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organised by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Centre for Peace and Security.