The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, told world leaders at COP29, this Tuesday (12), about the need to “pay” to avoid humanitarian disasters caused by the climate, and stated that time is running out to contain a devastating rise in global temperatures.
Around 200 countries are gathered at the annual UN climate summit in Baku, whose focus this year is to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to finance a global transition to cleaner energy sources and reduce climate damage caused by carbon emissions.
But on the day of the , many of the key participants were not present to hear Guterres’ message.
Following the victory of Donald Trump, a climate change denier, in the US presidential election, President Joe Biden will not attend.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will send a representative and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will not attend due to political events in Brussels.
“In relation to climate finance, the world must pay, or humanity will pay the price,” declared Guterres in his speech.
“The sound you hear is the ticking of a clock. We are in the final countdown to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and time is not on our side.”
Scientists say evidence shows how global warming and its impacts are occurring faster than expected and the world may have already reached 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above the pre-industrial average temperature – a critical threshold beyond which there is risk of irreversible and extreme climate change.
wildfires on the east coast of the US, which raised alarms about air quality in New York, continued to grow.
survivors are dealing with one of the worst floods in the country’s modern history and the Spanish government has announced billions of euros for reconstruction.
“Economy Killer”
The climate summit opened on Monday (11) with a technical agreement considered essential for the launch of a global carbon market supported by the UN, which would finance billions of dollars in .
That success was marred by a dispute over summit priorities – a procedural tug-of-war that pitted European countries and small island states against the Arab group of nations over how high the future of fossil fuels should be on the agenda.
The opening was delayed by at least five hours, ending in a final compromise reluctantly accepted by the EU and other aligned nations.
At a press conference this Tuesday, – reach an agreement for annual climate financing of up to US$1 trillion for developing countries.
“Allowing all countries to take strong climate action is 100% in the interest of all countries, even the largest and richest. Why? Because the climate crisis is quickly becoming an economy killer,” said Simon Stiell, head of the UNFCCC climate body facilitating the summit.
“Unless every country can deeply reduce emissions, every country and every family will be harmed even more than they are currently. We will live in a permanent inflationary nightmare.”
