Newsman: World Leaders and experts have raised increasing alarm that the time is running out to avert catastrophic rises in temperature as this year’s annual U.N. climate conference take place, More than 100 world leaders will speak over the next few days at the gathering in Egypt. U.S. and China announce surprise climate agreement at COP26 summit. In an announcement Wednesday they have agreed to cooperate on limiting emissions to address the global climate crisis.
The United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres told world leaders “Cooperate or perish,” gathered Monday for international climate talks, warning them that the world is “on a highway to climate hell” and urging the two biggest polluting countries, China and the United States, to work together to avert it.
“Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish,” Guterres said. “It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact — or a Collective Suicide Pact.”
Guterres insisted, “Today’s urgent crises cannot be an excuse for backsliding or greenwashing.”
He called for a new pact between rich and poor countries to make deeper cuts in emissions with financial help and phasing out of coal in rich nations by 2030 and elsewhere by 2040. He called on the United States and China — the two biggest economies — to especially work together on climate, something they used to do until the last few years.
This year’s annual U.N. climate conference, known as COP27 ,Much of the focus will be on national leaders telling their stories of being devastated by climate disaster, culminating Tuesday with a speech by Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Sharif, where the country’s summer floods caused at least $40 billion in damage and displaced millions of people. Most of the leaders are meeting Monday and Tuesday.
The leaders of the world’s 20 wealthiest nations will have their powerful-only club confab in Bali in Indonesia days later.
Leaders of China and India — both among the biggest emitters — appear to be skipping the climate talks, although underlings are here negotiating. The leader of the top polluting country, President Biden, is coming days later than most of the other presidents and prime ministers on his way to Bali.
This year’s summit’s host Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi told leaders “Is it not high time to put an end to all this suffering.” He said “Climate change will never stop without our intervention … Our time here is limited and we must use every second that we have.”
El-Sisi, who called for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, was gentle compared to a fiery United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said the world “is on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”
United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was initially going to avoid the negotiations, but public pressure and predecessor Boris Johnson’s plans to come changed his mind. New King Charles III, a longtime environment advocate, won’t attend because of his new role. And Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine created energy chaos that reverberates in the world of climate negotiations, won’t be here.
“We always want more” leaders, United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said in a Sunday news conference. “But I believe there is sufficient (leadership) right now for us to have a very productive outcome.”
In addition to speeches given by the leaders, the negotiations include “innovative” roundtable discussions that “we are confident, will generate some very powerful insights,” Stiell said.
For the first time, developing nations succeeded in getting onto the summit agenda the issue of “loss and damage” — demands that emitting countries pay for damage caused by climate-induced disasters.
Nigeria’s Environment Minister Mohammed Abdullahi called for wealthy nations to show “positive and affirmative” commitments to help countries hardest hit by climate change. “Our priority is to be aggressive when it comes to climate funding to mitigate the challenges of loss and damage,” he said.
“The historical polluters who caused climate change are not showing up,” said Mohammed Adow of Power Shift Africa. “Africa is the least responsible, the most vulnerable to the issue of climate change and it is a continent that is stepping up and providing leadership.”
For the first time in 30 years of climate negotiations, the summit “should focus its attention on the severe climate impacts we’re already seeing,” said World Resources International’s David Waskow.
“We can’t discount an entire continent that has over a billion people living here and has some of the most severe impacts,” Waskow said. “It’s pretty clear that Africa will be at risk in a very severe way.”
Developing nations have called for wealthy nations to uphold a 2009 pledge made at a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, to channel $100 billion per year to less wealthy countries to help them adapt to climate change.
World’s top two greenhouse gas-emitting countries The United States and China — the, which together account for about— announced Wednesday they have agreed to cooperate on limiting emissions to address the global climate crisis.
A total of 40% of the world’s annual carbon output is by United States and China.
The agreement, announced at the United Nations COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, aims to accelerate emissions reductions toward the goals set in the 2015 Paris Agreement. That accord held governments worldwide responsible for emissions cuts that would keep the global temperature rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) relative to preindustrial times, with a target of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
“It’s beneficial not only to our two countries but the world as a whole that two major powers in the world, China and the U.S., shoulder special international responsibilities and obligations,” Chinese special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua told reporters at a news conference. “We need to think big and be responsible.”
At a time when China and the U.S. are at odds over other international issues, the agreement declares an intent to take “concrete actions” on emissions reductions and limitations. The two countries would share policy and technology development, announce new national targets for 2035 by the year 2025 and revive a “multilateral” working group on climate change.
U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry said in an interview with NPR “I’m absolutely convinced that that is the fastest, best way to get China to move from where it is today.”
“It’s the fastest we can get at this moment here in Glasgow, but it’s the first time China and the United States have stood up — the two biggest emitters in the world — and said, ‘We’re going to work together to accelerate the reduction,’ ” Kerry said.
“Yesterday was bigger than some people think,” he said separately.
Kerry said China’s willingness to cooperate, its current state of emissions and its history of “outperforming its own goals” makes this agreement more ambitious than its critics realize. He also pointed out the importance of the agreement to reduce methane emissions. It is the first time the Chinese government has pledged to address the issue, and it’s one the U.S. announced new rules for this month.
“If we’ve reached the goal that we have set for 30% reduction of methane by 2030,” Kerry said, “that is the equivalent of taking all the cars in the world, all of the trucks in the world, all of the airplanes in the world, all ships in the world, down to zero. That’s how big it is. That’s what’s on the table.”
Kerry also addressed criticism from representatives of nations that are among the most vulnerable to climate change, as well as questions about U.S. leadership on climate issues.
