Climate Change Conference must reach agreements to compensate for disaster losses and damage

As government representatives gathered in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo begin finalizing the agenda for the conference, to be held in Egypt next month, on Monday, the Secretary-General said 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-Climate Change Conference, also known as COP17, began in Kinshasa, the Secretary-General outlined worsening climate impacts around the world and called for tackling climate impacts to become a top global priority.

“A third of Pakistan has been flooded. The hottest summer in Europe in 500 years. The Philippines battered. All of Cuba in blackout. And here in the United States, Hurricane Ian has been a brutal reminder that no country and no economy is immune to the climate crisis,” Guterres said.

And while “climate chaos is galloping, climate action has stalled,” he added.

Flawed mathematics

Guterres underlined the importance of COP27 while warning that the collective commitments of the governments of the main industrialized countries of the G20 are being “too few and too late”.

“The actions of the richest developed and emerging economies just don’t add up,” he said, noting that current promises and policies are “closing the door” to limiting global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius, let alone meeting the 1.5°C target.

Guterres warned that “we are in a life-and-death struggle for our own security today and our survival tomorrow,” and said there is no time to point fingers or “shake our thumbs,” but that what is needed is “a quantum-level engagement between developed and emerging economies.”

“The world can’t wait,” he explained. “Emissions are at an all-time high and rising.”

Recoil

As the planet burns, Ukraine’s war shelved climate action, and dynamic climate actors in business continue to be hampered by “outdated regulatory frameworks, red tape and damaging subsidies that send the wrong signals.”

International financial institutions, while carrying out their own “trickle initiatives,” must review their business approaches to combating climate change, he said.

The UN chief said significant progress needs to be made to address loss and damage beyond countries’ adaptive capacity, as well as financial support for climate action.

Decisions need to be made now on the issue of loss and damage, as “failure to act” will lead to “more loss of confidence and more climate damage,” he said, describing it as “a moral imperative that cannot be ignored.”

Litmus test

The 27th Climate Conference is “the litmus test” of how seriously governments are taking the growing climate burden on the most vulnerable countries.

“This week’s pre-COP meeting may determine how this crucial issue will be dealt with in Sharm el-Shaikh,” he said, noting that the world needs clarity from developed countries on fulfilling their $100 billion pledge to support climate action in developing countries.

In addition, adaptation and resilience finance must account for half of all climate finance; multilateral development banks “must play their game”; And emerging economies need support to support renewables and build resilience.

While the International Monetary Fund-led Resilience and Sustainability Trust is a good start, key shareholders in multilateral development banks must be the driving force behind transformative change, he continued.

“On all climate fronts, the only solution is solidarity and decisive action.”

The Secretary-General said that when they go to Sharm el-Shaikh, all countries – led by the G20 – can demonstrate that “climate action is really the top global priority it needs to be.”

Intensifying support for climate adaptation

Meanwhile, in Kinshasa, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, in her pre-COP opening address, warned environment ministers and others that the opportunity to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis is closing.

He stressed that increased support for climate adaptation in developing countries “must be a global priority”, particularly progress on adaptation financing.

Mohammed recalled that at last year’s COP26 conference in Glasgow, developed countries pledged to double adaptation support to $40 billion annually by 2025.

The UN number two called for a clear roadmap on how funding will be delivered, starting this year.

He added that $40 billion is “only a fraction of the $300 billion that developing countries will need annually for adaptation by 2030.”

Every moment counts

Mohammed stressed that the world “desperately needs hope.”

“We need progress … that demonstrate that leaders fully understand the magnitude of the emergency we face and the value of the COP, as a space where world leaders come together to solve problems and take responsibility,” he said.

“Every moment counts.”

The deputy secretary-general said it was time to show that progress is being made in the right direction “with an outcome that demonstrates our collective commitment to tackling the climate crisis, because people, and children here, and planet matter.”

Source: UN News