UNITED NATIONS: United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has urged the rich nations to enhance support for poor countries worst affected by the climate change.
Rich countries’ unkept promise to provide $100 billion a year in climate change financing starting in 2020 is a recurring sticking point in international talks on global warming. So is a call from developing countries for a fund specifically designed to compensate for loss and damage they have already suffered due to global warming.
In a speech to the General Assembly, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said UN climate talks known as COP27 opening in Egypt in November “must be the place for serious action on loss and damage.”
“COP27 must be the place for clarity on vital funding for adaptation and resilience,” Guterres said.
“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.
Developing countries are the least responsible for climate change but the ones who suffer the most because of it. They are demanding what is known as climate justice. Such is the case with the government of Pakistan, where flooding has claimed some 1,700 lives, destroyed or damaged two million homes and left a third of the country submerged in fetid, stagnant water.
Addressing this calamity, the assembly called on the international community to boost humanitarian assistance to and rehabilitation of Pakistan. Guterres said he is working with the government of Pakistan to organize a high-level donors conference.
“For so many with so little, the effects of these floods will be felt not just for days or even months,” he said, adding that this disaster is just a taste of what is to come with global warming.
“Climate chaos is knocking on everyone’s door, right now,” said Guterres.
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”.
