WORLD leaders began formal talks at the United Nations climate conference in Turkey on Wednesday, seeking agreement on concrete steps to curb global warming after a year of deadly floods, heatwaves and other climate-related disasters.
However, leaders of some of the world’s biggest polluting nations, including the United States, China and India, skipped the summit at COP31. Their absence left a handful of national leaders and UN officials to press for action as a new report warned of a widening gap between countries’ climate pledges and actual emissions cuts.
Scientists say global warming is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Limiting warming to that threshold was a goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement and remains a focus of international negotiations.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged world leaders to take action on climate change in an opening speech at the leaders’ summit.
“We know the truth. Now we must act on it,” he said. “Because climate action is more than a fight over a number or a thermometer. We are in the fight for our lives and our children’s future.”
Mr Guterres outlined four principles for climate negotiations: ending reliance on fossil fuels, adapting to a warmer world, increasing financial support from wealthy nations to countries coping with climate change, and promoting cooperation over conflict.
He called the framework “a new Climate Justice Compact based on shared responsibility, shared security and shared benefits.”
“We do not need countries to agree on everything. But we do need them to cooperate on the things no country can solve alone,” he said.
Brazil’s newly re-elected President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said climate change had slipped off the global leadership agenda over the past year, overshadowed by wars, inflation and geopolitical conflicts.
He pledged to protect the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, and urged world leaders to work together for a just and sustainable future.
“Brazil is back to defend the continuity of a healthy planet,” he said in closing.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, devoted much of his speech to Gaza and the Palestinians.
“What has taken place in Gaza is not only a genocide, but it is also an ecocide,” he said, drawing applause.
“Centuries-old olive trees have been cut down. The soil and water have been polluted in Gaza, and cities in Gaza have been turned into enormous piles of rubble.”
— AP
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