As the action-packed week of the United Nations General Assembly began, the message regarding the planet’s climate emergency was clear: “Take decisive action now to avert a climate catastrophe”. Hours after the UNGA began, an emergency summit was convened behind closed doors to call for more climate finance and other measures from rich countries.
The meeting has meaning than that UN gather countries ahead of the Conference of the Parties (CoP-26) next month in Glasgow, Scotland. The informal roundtable of climate leaders on climate protection took place when UN chief Antonio Guterres said: “Saving this and future generations is a shared responsibility”.
According to a statement by the United Nations, world leaders have addressed the remaining gaps in the measures required by national governments, particularly the G20 industrialized nations, in the areas of mitigation, financing and adaptation. The round table is “a wake-up call to arouse a sense of urgency regarding the dire state of the climate process before COP26”.
100 BILLION FIND $
One of the main agendas of the closed session was to raise funds to fund the climate change initiatives. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who moderated the meeting with the UN chief, called on leaders of the world’s major economies, including the United States, to make pledges for a $ 100 billion a year climate fund to be observed.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks to reporters after meeting UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on climate change discussions. (Photo: AP)
“Too many large economies, some of which are represented here today and some of which are missing, are lagging too far behind. Let me reiterate that for this to be a success, we need the developed world to find that $ 100 billion, ”Johnson said during the UN General Assembly’s annual high-level week. Johnson told reporters he hopes the United States can deliver on its promise to increase its share of money toward the $ 100 billion annual target, but “we’ve been here before” and “we don’t count our chickens.”
Meanwhile, John Kerry, US climate commissioner, said the The country will provide more climate aid ahead of the CoP-26 climate conference from October 31 to November 12. “The United States is vital,” said Johnson, adding that “it will send a tremendously powerful signal to the world.”
NOT ENOUGH
An Oxfam International report on climate finance paints a bleak picture of the situation, stating that wealthy nations will fall below $ 75 billion to deliver on their long-standing promise to mobilize $ 100 billion each year to help the am strongest to help countries at risk of climate change impact.
The report is set against the backdrop of newly released data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which showed that developed countries only provided around $ 80 billion in climate finance in 2019. “Based on current pledges and plans, Oxfam estimates that governments will continue to miss the $ 100 billion target and only hit $ 93 to 95 billion a year by 2025, five years after the target should have been met,” said it in the report.
World leaders have addressed the remaining gaps in action required by national governments. (Photo: AP)
Meanwhile, Guterres urged donor countries and multilateral development banks to show progress in achieving his goal of increasing the proportion of funding devoted to helping countries adapt to climate change from the current 21 percent to 50 percent, Selwin Hart said , Special advisor to Guterres on climate protection.
EMISSION REDUCTIONS ARE CRITICALLY NEEDED
One of the biggest drivers of climate change is emissions, and most of them are man-made, an intergovernmental panel on climate change had said the planet is on its way until the most important temperature limit is touched, after which the probability of a reversal is very unlikely.
Smoke and steam rise from the towers of the Urumqi coal-fired power station in Urumqi, west China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. (Photo: AP)
Under the Paris Agreement, the nations of the world must come up with ideas every five years even stricter emissions cuts and more funds for poorer countries develop cleaner energy systems and adapt to climate change. A UN report on Friday showed that current pledges to reduce CO2 emissions have been moving the world on a path of 2.7 degrees Celsius warming since the pre-industrial era. That even misses the weaker Paris goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
The overriding goal is to achieve “net zero” CO2 emissions by the middle of the 21st century. This refers to a moment when the world’s economies release the same amount of carbon dioxide into the air as plants and oceans get out of it, and thus do not contribute to global warming.
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