There Is A Grim Backdrop To The Talks Because Of The Global Crisis

International delegates gathered Sunday in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for talks on tackling climate change amid a multitude of competing crises, including the war in Ukraine, high inflation, food shortages, and the energy crisis. It is scheduled for Monday for the Representative of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, to depart for Egypt with an accompanying delegation.

The 27th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), COP27, and the Second Middle East Green Initiative (MGI) will both take place at the Sharm el-Sheikh resort. After two frantic days of preliminary talks, negotiators agreed to formally discuss the issue of vulnerable nations receiving compensation for their losses and damages. Climate reparations have weighed on the talks for years, with rich nations like the United States pushing back. Achieving this status demonstrates progress and parties taking a mature and constructive approach," said Simon Stiell, the U.N.'s top climate official.

The subject area is difficult. It has floated for over thirty years now, he said. “I think it bodes well for the future.” Civil society groups also welcomed the decision. According to Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute, climate talks are finally focusing on providing funding to address climate-related losses and damages. It is still a marathon ahead of us before countries reach a formal agreement on this central issue, he cautioned.

The agreement could help negotiators make "serious progress" on the issue of reducing emissions, according to German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan, who led negotiations with Chile prior to the talks. As the outgoing chair of the talks, British official Alok Sharma said countries had made considerable progress at their last meeting in Glasgow in limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. Experts say that chances of meeting that target, agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accord, is fast slipping away though. Already, temperatures around the world have increased by about 1.2 C (2.2 F) since pre-industrial times Sharma warned that other global crises meant international efforts to curb climate change were being “buffeted by global headwinds.”

Brutal
Putin's brutal and illegal war in Ukraine has precipitated multiple global crises, energy and food insecurity, inflationary pressures, and spiraling debt, said Sharma. “These crises have compounded existing climate vulnerabilities and the scarring effects of the pandemic.” “As challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe,” said Sharma. “We must find the ability to focus on more than one thing at once.” “How many more wake up calls does the world to world leaders actually need,” he said, citing recent devastating floods in Pakistan and Nigeria, and historic droughts in Europe, the United States and China.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said Egypt would "spare no effort" to achieve the Paris accord's goals in Sharm el-Sheikh. In an opening speech, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Hoesung Lee, said countries have “a once in a generation opportunity to save our planet and our livelihoods.” Cutting emissions is only part of the task, however. Scientists and campaigners say the world also needs to do more to adapt to those effects of global warming that can’t be avoided anymore.

The head of the U.N. migration agency urged the international community Sunday to mobilize human and financial resources to address growing climate migration. The Associated Press reported that millions of people around the world are suffering due to the impacts of natural disasters and climate change. "We are running out of time," Vitorino said. To support those who are already seriously impacted by climate change today, the international community must mobilize the expertise, human resources, as well as financial resources. According to Vitorino, IOM's director general, $100 billion in current funding for adaptation needs to be doubled, especially in regions and communities impacted by rapidly changing climates. “If we don’t focus on solutions for the future,” he said. “We will leave a dramatic humanitarian crisis in the future (that) will eat millions and millions of people in the world,” he said.

World Meteorological Organization warned Sunday that Earth's warming weather and rising sea levels are getting worse and doing so faster than ever before. “The latest State of the Global Climate Report is a chronicle of climate chaos,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. Taking ambitious, credible climate action is our response to the planet’s distress signal. According to the United Nations’ weather agency’s annual report on the state of the climate, sea levels have risen twice as fast as they did in the 1990s and have risen at a faster pace since January 2020. Since the decade began, seas are rising at 5 millimeters a year (.2 inches) compared to 2.1 millimeters (.08 inches) in the 1990s. The last eight years have been the warmest on record, the WMO said in a report that didn’t break new ground but was a collection of recent weather trends, data and impacts in one central place. “The melting (of ice) game we have lost and also the sea level rate,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas told The Associated Press. So far, there are no positive indicators. The only reason the globe hasn't broken monthly temperature records in the past few years is a rare three-year La Nia weather phenomenon.

 

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