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The possibility of China signing up to more climate promises at the COP27 summit in Egypt is clouded by fractured relations with the United States

Fractured relations between the United States and China have cast further doubt on whether Beijing will sign up to more climate promises, with pressure mounting on the world’s biggest emitter.

US President Joe Biden is expected to be among the leaders to show up at the COP27 summit in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, but his newly reanointed Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will be conspicuous by his absence.

Cooperation between the world’s two largest economies and carbon polluters has been central to rare breakthroughs in the nearly 30-year saga of UN climate talks, including the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.

However, relations have sunk to a 40-year low after a visit to Taiwan by House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a US ban on the sale of high-level chip technology to China, leaving the outcome of COP27 in doubt.

The rival nations have already been thrust under the spotlight at the talks in Egypt, with French President Emmanuel Macron telling campaigners on Monday both needed to “step up”.

– Low expectations –

Beijing was a central player in the French capital seven years ago and is also considered crucial to this year’s talks in Egypt, given the outsized impacts of its huge population, massive energy-guzzling economy and status as the planet’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Xi has already pledged that China will peak its carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and reduce them to net zero by 2060, moves seen as essential for meeting the Paris goal of keeping global temperature rise well below two degrees Celsius.

However, with humanity poised to blow past the 2 degrees Celsius limit under current commitments, pressure has grown on major polluters to go even further in their efforts to cut emissions.

Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate change think tank E3G, said cooperation between China and the United States on key issues such as methane and deforestation was essential.

“If they’re pushing against each other on how to deal with those issues it’s never helpful,” Meyer told AFP.

“China and the US are both going to act based on what they think is in their national self-interest, but when it comes to international collaboration it’s been important for the US and China to be aligned at key moments.”

Still, there are scant hopes that China will significantly ramp up its climate commitments at COP27.

A report published by the environment ministry last month stressed the need to deliver existing pledges instead of promising anything new.

China’s climate change chief underscored the point, calling on developed countries to cough up long-promised cash for poorer nations instead of falling back on “empty slogans”.

– Methane fears –

China is under pressure to firm up plans to cut emissions of methane, an atmospheric pollutant present in much lower quantities than carbon dioxide but with far greater heat-trapping potential.

Methane accounts for around 10 percent of China’s total emissions, mainly from the mining, agriculture and waste sectors.

Beijing and Washington jointly declared last year that they would work together to control methane emissions.

But while the US has already laid out plans to cut its emissions to 30 percent below 2020 levels by the end of the decade, China has not yet announced its own roadmap.

“Methane is an area that has been neglected by China’s climate action … (but) can no longer stay as an afterthought,” said Li Shuo, senior global policy adviser at Greenpeace East Asia.

Whether Beijing releases an action plan at COP27, and what that plan entails, “will tell us a lot about China’s willingness to honour promises and its desire to engage with other partners”, Li told AFP.

– Belt and Road impact –

The environmental impact of Xi’s flagship Belt and Road initiative has also come under scrutiny.

The sprawling plan envisions a continent-spanning web of infrastructure projects to link China with markets in Asia, Europe, Africa and beyond.

Campaigners have criticised the projects for damaging fragile ecosystems and including new coal-fired power plants overseas, even as Beijing pivots towards renewables at home.

China was funding over a quarter of all new coal plants outside its borders by 2019, according to a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a US think tank.

Authorities have since called a halt to overseas coal funding and pledged to pursue “green” projects that help to reduce emissions, cut pollution and protect biodiversity.

Concerns linger over China’s dependence on coal — which still makes up most of its energy supply — especially after it burned through even more this summer to meet increased air-conditioning demand and make up for shrunken hydropower dams.

Despite this, Xi can point to a suite of policies that have helped position China as an emerging environmental force, including ramping up support for renewables, bringing swaths of the countryside under state protection and booting smog-spewing factories out of large cities to improve air quality.

The comb was found at the Tel Lachish site in 2017 but the letters were not noticed until earlier this year following further examination, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says

A rare inscription that sheds new light on the use of Canaanite language some 3,700 years ago has been discovered on an ivory comb in southern Israel, archaeologists said Wednesday.

The comb was found at the Tel Lachish site in 2017, but the letters were not noticed until earlier this year following further examination, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said in a statement.

The artefact provides “direct evidence” of the use of the Canaanite alphabet in daily life, said Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeology professor at Hebrew University.

The 17 letters inscribed on the comb, which was used to remove lice, form seven words that translate to “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard,” the statement said.

“This is the first sentence ever found in the Canaanite language in Israel,” Garfinkel noted, calling it “a landmark in the history of the human ability to write”.

Lachish, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) southwest of Jerusalem, was a key Canaanite city.

Archaeologists have found 10 inscriptions there, but the comb marks the first “entire verbal sentence” written in the language spoken by the inhabitants of ancient Lachish, the statement said.

It noted the comb itself was likely an imported luxury object, as there were no elephants in Canaan, and therefore no ivory.

Sonoran desert toads, also called Colorado River toads, which live in the southwestern United States and northwest Mexico

US park officials have asked visitors to stop licking psychedelic toads, warning that anyone seeking a hallucinogenic high from the wart-covered amphibians is more likely to end up seriously ill.

The National Park Service posted cautionary messages on social media last week against licking Sonoran Desert toads, a practice long depicted on popular animated television shows including “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy.”

“As we say with most things you come across in a national park, whether it be a banana slug, unfamiliar mushroom, or a large toad with glowing eyes in the dead of night, please refrain from licking,” said park officials.

The toads — among the largest in North America, at nearly seven inches (18 centimetres) long — secrete a potent toxin from their glands which “can make you sick if you handle the frog or get the poison in your mouth,” they wrote.

The messages did not indicate how many people have been seeking recreational highs by licking the slimy green creatures, also called Colorado River toads, which live in the southwestern United States and northwest Mexico.

To defend themselves from predators, the toads secrete a milky substance containing various toxins, among which is 5-MeO-DMT — a psychoactive compound that triggers hallucinogenic effects.

Smoking extracted 5-MeO-DMT induces a powerful, short psychedelic experience, and has become popular in recent years, including at expensive underground “toad ceremonies” in the US, where it is a controlled substance, and in Mexico.

Celebrities such as boxing champion Mike Tyson and podcaster Joe Rogan have discussed the use of the substance for therapeutic, recreational, and even spiritual purposes.

But the toad’s venom also contains other toxic substances which can be fatal when ingested.

Scientists have also warned that the growing demand for Sonoran Desert toads’ secretions could endanger the species.

This NASA handout photo shows the Moon as it rises behind NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket

NASA again rescheduled its long-delayed uncrewed mission to the Moon on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Nicole churned toward the east coast of Florida, officials said.

A launch attempt, which had been scheduled for November 14, will now take place on November 16, Jim Free, a senior official at the US space agency, said on Twitter.

It is the third delay of the highly-anticipated launch in as many months.

“Our people are the most important aspect of our mission,” wrote Free, who is NASA’s Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development. “Adjusting our target launch date for #Artemis I prioritizes employee safety and allows our team to tend to the needs of their families and homes.”

The Atlantic Ocean storm was expected to develop into a hurricane Wednesday near the Bahamas, before making landfall in Florida either later that evening or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said.

A hurricane warning has been issued near the Kennedy Space Center, where the rocket — NASA’s most powerful ever — is to blast off.

With Nicole gaining strength, “NASA… has decided to re-target a launch for the Artemis I mission for Wednesday, Nov. 16, pending safe conditions for employees to return to work, as well as inspections after the storm has passed,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday evening.

NASA added that a launch occurring during a two-hour window that opens at 1:04 am EST (0604 GMT) on November 16 would result in a splashdown on Friday, Dec. 11.

A back-up launch date has been set for November 19.

NASA said it would leave the giant SLS rocket on the launch pad, where it had been placed several days before.

After two launch attempts were scrubbed this summer because of technical problems, the rocket had to be returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building to protect it from Hurricane Ian.

Last week, the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket was rolled back out on a giant platform known as the crawler-transporter designed to minimize vibrations.

Earlier Tuesday, Nicole was packing sustained winds near 65 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour) with higher gusts and was expected to strengthen even further, according to the NHC.

Some experts have voiced concern that the rocket, which is estimated to cost several billion dollars, could be damaged by debris from the hurricane if it remains exposed. 

“As far as staying at the pad, we want to see peak winds less than 74.1 knots, and that’s kind of the key requirement that we’re tracking,” said chief rocket engineer John Blevins.

The SLS rocket is designed to withstand 85 mile-per-hour (74.4-knot) winds at the 60-foot level with structural margin, NASA said. It is designed to also withstand heavy rains at the launch pad and the spacecraft hatches have been secured to prevent water intrusion.

The uncrewed mission, dubbed Artemis 1, will bring the United States a step closer to returning astronauts to the Moon five decades after humans last walked on the lunar surface.

The goal of Artemis 1, named after the twin sister of Apollo, is to test the SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule that sits on top.

Mannequins are standing in for astronauts on the mission and will record acceleration, vibration, and radiation levels.

Sonoran desert toads, also called Colorado River toads, which live in the southwestern United States and northwest Mexico

US park officials have asked visitors to stop licking psychedelic toads, warning that anyone seeking a hallucinogenic high from the wart-covered amphibians is more likely to end up seriously ill.

The National Park Service posted cautionary messages on social media last week against licking Sonoran Desert toads, a practice long depicted on popular animated television shows including “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy.”

“As we say with most things you come across in a national park, whether it be a banana slug, unfamiliar mushroom, or a large toad with glowing eyes in the dead of night, please refrain from licking,” said park officials.

The toads — among the largest in North America, at nearly seven inches (18 centimetres) long — secrete a potent toxin from their glands which “can make you sick if you handle the frog or get the poison in your mouth,” they wrote.

The messages did not indicate how many people have been seeking recreational highs by licking the slimy green creatures, also called Colorado River toads, which live in the southwestern United States and northwest Mexico.

To defend themselves from predators, the toads secrete a milky substance containing various toxins, among which is 5-MeO-DMT — a psychoactive compound that triggers hallucinogenic effects.

Smoking extracted 5-MeO-DMT induces a powerful, short psychedelic experience, and has become popular in recent years, including at expensive underground “toad ceremonies” in the US, where it is a controlled substance, and in Mexico.

Celebrities such as boxing champion Mike Tyson and podcaster Joe Rogan have discussed the use of the substance for therapeutic, recreational, and even spiritual purposes.

But the toad’s venom also contains other toxic substances which can be fatal when ingested.

Scientists have also warned that the growing demand for Sonoran Desert toads’ secretions could endanger the species.

Aerial view of a deforested area of the Gran Chaco forest in northern Argentina near Juan Jose Castelli

Dwarfed by its more prestigious sibling, the Amazon, South America’s second largest forest is a little-known victim of 25 years of gradual invasion by agriculture.

The Gran Chaco indigenous forest that spans one million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) across Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia is at the mercy of ravenous soybean and sunflower crops, as well as pasture land.

Comprising a mix of dry thorn shrubland, woodlands and palm savannas, the dense tropical dry forest contains massive scars — vast areas of deforestation gouged out with alarming regularity.

The harm to local fauna and flora is immeasurable.

In some places, as far as the eye can see, carob trees uprooted by heavy machinery lie waiting to be taken away and used as charcoal, tannin, furniture and railway sleepers, for which this dense hardwood is particularly prized.

Here, in Argentina’s northeast, some 1,100-kilometers (685 miles) from Buenos Aires, is the country’s agriculture frontier.

It is where the agro export industry, so crucial for a country short on foreign currency, advances at the expense various species of fauna and flora, as well as people.

“Practically all of Chaco province used to be covered by forests,” agricultural engineer Ines Aguirre from the Chaco Argentina Agroforestry Network told AFP.

“But when the technological package of genetically modified soyabean appeared in the 1990s, the Chaco zone began to be colonized.”

– ‘Strong agro pressure’ –

Two of Argentina’s main exports, soybean (30 percent) and genetically-modified corn are, like sunflowers, resistent to dry climates, allowing them to thrive in the semiarid Chaco region.

Deforestation in the region has averaged around 40,000 hectares (154 square miles) a year, peaking at 60,000 on occasions, said Aguirre.

“This shouldn’t happen because all forms of deforestation have been suspended in the province,” said Noemi Cruz, the forests campaign co-ordinator at Greenpeace, while picking up a handful of dusty earth from a patch of ground cleared of trees. 

Without the protection of those trees “water slides on the surface but won’t penetrate the ground during the rainy season.”

Chaco includes a 128,000 hectare national park called The Impenetrable that is designated a “red zone” and strictly protected by a forestry law. But there are also “yellow” zones where tourism and “soft” agriculture are allowed, and “green” zones that are a free-for-all.

But this law has not proved sufficient to protect the forests.

“There is strong pressure from companies and agricultural producers that want to open up more farmland and there is a permanent international demand for primary materials, especially soyabean and beef,” said biologist and researcher Matias Mastrangelo, from the CONICET national scientific and technical research institute.

In the case of illegal logging, a lightly punitive fine “does not discourage clearing and the companies incorporate it as another production cost.”

What this means is that deforestation around The Impenetrable park affects the rich fauna living within it, such as anteaters, peccaries, coral snakes, tapir and the continent’s largest feline, the jaguar, which is endangered in the region and the subject of an ambitious reintroduction program.

“A forest that becomes a soybean field can no longer provide shelter for the jaguar, nor any of its prey. The destruction is absolute,” said biologist Gerardo Ceron, coordinator of the Rewilding Argentina team managing the predator’s reintroduction.

– Large mammals at risk –

“In the dry Chaco, we are probably facing a very serious effect of losing fauna. We are seeing especially the extinction of large mammals,” said Micaela Camino, a biologist at CONICET, citing the giant armadillo and white-lipped peccary as examples.

“When a species is lost, you lose what is unique about the species. But also the nutritional security of local families and all the functions that this species performed in the ecosystem.

“You’re losing the ability of this ecosystem to survive, regenerate and be resilient, which is very dangerous in a context of climate change.”

It is not just fauna and flora being pushed out but also local indigenous communities, such as the Wichi and Criollo who live in the forest.

“What generally happens is that before the logging, the rights of these families are violated. They are swindled (out of their land) and forced to leave their homes,” added Camino.

Aguirre says there are solutions to regenerate the lost Chaco forest, starting with the replanting of the carob tree.

“The carob tree, which is a legume, produces a reaction between bacteria and the tree’s roots that recomposes the nitrogen in the soil. It’s amazing, the growth is incredible,” she said.

But such programs are for later, for now the priority is “stopping deforestation.”

Flare stacks in Iraq burn off excess gas: the COP27 talks have been dominated by calls for wealthier nations to step up their commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions

The United States sought to reassure the UN climate summit in Egypt on Tuesday that it will stick to its energy transition even if Republicans triumph in midterm elections.

The COP27 talks have been dominated by calls for all nations to step up their commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and for rich ones to fulfil pledges to financially help the developing world to green their economies and build resilience.

Poor and climate-vulnerable economies devastated by natural disasters have demanded compensation for damages already incurred, with calls for a windfall tax on the profits of oil companies to help pay.

But stiff international criticism of Egypt’s treatment of hunger-striking activist Alaa Abdel Fattah and the US midterm election also loomed large over the summit.

US President Joe Biden’s Democrats face a tough battle to hang on to their majority in Congress against Republicans, who are less favourable to international climate action.

A Republican victory could be a boon to the ambitions of former president Donald Trump, who is expected to make another bid for the White House.

Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. Biden returned the United States — the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China — to the pact on his first day in office in 2020.

Biden won a major victory earlier this year when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which will channel hundreds of billions towards green energy initiatives.

– ‘More determined than ever’ –

The “climate crisis doesn’t just threaten our infrastructure, economy and security — it threatens every single aspect of our lives on a daily basis,” US climate envoy John Kerry said on the sidelines of the summit, in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

He said that even if Democrats lose the election, “President Biden is more determined than ever to continue what we are doing.” 

“And most of what we are doing cannot be changed by anybody else who comes along,” Kerry said. “The marketplace has made its decision to do what we need to do to respond to the climate crisis.”

Some 100 world leaders were attending the summit on Monday and Tuesday, but Biden will only come on Friday after the midterms.

Nations worldwide are coping with increasingly intense natural disasters that have taken thousands of lives this year and cost billions of dollars, including devastating floods Pakistan, droughts in Africa and unprecedented heatwaves across three continents.

The world is “burning up faster than our capacity for recovery,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told fellow leaders.

Fallout from the energy crunch caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also cast a shadow on the summit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an appearance via video-link, warning that Russia’s war was “destroying the world’s ability to work united for a common goal”.

– ‘Planet is burning’ –

Countries are under pressure to step up efforts to reduce emissions to meet the most ambitious Paris Agreement goal of preventing temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era.

China’s climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, told the summit that his country’s commitment to global efforts “will not retreat” — a day after UN chief Antonio Guterres urged Beijing and Washington to step up their efforts.

The leaders of Colombia and Venezuela, meanwhile, launched a call for a wide-ranging alliance to protect the Amazon, a crucial lynchpin of the global climate system.

A UN-backed report said developing countries and emerging economies, excluding China, need investments well beyond $2 trillion per year by 2030 if the world is to stop the global warming juggernaut.

One after the other, leaders of developing nations called for the establishment of a “loss and damage” fund that would compensate them for the here-and-now destruction caused by natural disasters, arguing that rich nations are responsible for the biggest share of planet-heating emissions.

Sharif pleaded for help after the recent floods in Pakistan had cost his country more than $30 billion in loss and damage: “How on earth can one expect from us that we will undertake this gigantic task on our own?”

Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne — speaking on behalf of a group of small island nations endangered by rising sea levels and tropical storms — said it was time to tax the windfall profits of oil companies to pay for loss and damage.

“While they are profiting, the planet is burning,” Browne said.

From L to R: The presidents of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, Colombia's Gustavo Petro and Suriname's Chan Santokhi attend a Latin American event on the sidlelines of the COP27 climate conference

The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela, Gustavo Petro and Nicolas Maduro, launched a call Tuesday at the COP27 climate summit for a wide-ranging alliance to protect the Amazon, the planet’s biggest tropical forest.

“We are determined to revitalise the Amazon rainforest… (in order) to offer humanity a significant victory in the battle against climate change,” Petro said at the UN summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. 

“If we, in the South Americas, carry a responsibility, it is to stop the destruction of the Amazon and put in place a coordinated process of recovery,” Maduro said, speaking alongside Petro and the president of Suriname, Chan Santokhi.

Key to any such revival plan will be the newly elected Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, who will take up his post on January 1 and is expected to attend COP27 next week. 

The participation of Brazil in such a planned alliance will be “absolutely strategic”, Petro said. 

Leftist Lula faces an immense challenge in putting a brake on Amazon deforestation, a phenomenon that rapidly proliferated under his right-wing predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. 

Petro, architect of the proposed new alliance, has called for the US to collaborate, noting that it is “the country that pollutes the most” on the American continent, while the south of the landmass is “the sponge that absorbs the most carbon dioxide on the continent”.

He advocated “the opening of a fund” fed by “the contribution of private companies and world nations”.

Petro had announced the previous day that his country intends to set aside $200 million per year over the next two decades to protect the Amazon. 

He urged solidarity from international organisations, at a time when the COP has put the issue of compensation for damage caused by global warming on its agenda, despite resistance from developed nations. 

“One of the subjects which could bring consensus between us, Africa and part of Asia is (a mechanism for) forgiveness of (national) debt as a means of financing action” against climate change, Petro said. 

The International Monetary Fund would have “a role to play” in working with developing countries on this issue, he added.  

– ‘Buried reserves’ –

The “political message (is) very important”, but the question “is to know how these intentions will materialise,” said Harol Rincon Ipuchima, a representative of Indigenous people in Colombia. 

Ipuchima, who is also the co-chair of the Indigenous caucus at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, took President Petro to task for not having spoken more with his community, whom he described as “the masters of the territory”.

According to Amazon Conservation, which tracks deforestation in the region, around 13 percent of the original biomass of the Amazon rainforest has already disappeared.  

The Amazon basin, which stretches over 7.4 million square kilometres, covers nearly 40 percent of South America and takes in nine countries, with around 34 million — mostly Indigenous people — living across this area.

Petro, the first leftist president of Colombia, took office on August 7, with an ambitious environmental plan that targets converting his nation to clean energy and halting exploration for new oil deposits, among other measures. 

He has however recognised that the presence of sub-soil hydrocarbon reserves in the Amazon region, beginning with Venezuela, could thwart this plan, but emphasised he is determined to eventually abandon fossil fuels. 

Colombia’s Environment Minister Susana Muhamad Gonzalez has advocated a “diversification” of economies of countries that possess such resources, urging them to “leave the reserves in the soil”.

Ipuchima recalled that “entire territories of the Indigenous people of the Amazon have been destroyed.”

“Not only Venezuela, but Colombia too has many oil companies in these territories. Likewise Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador,” he added. 

President Petro hopes to organise a meeting with the other regional countries in early 2023 to discuss his proposed alliance. 

Rich nations have fallen short on delivering climate finance, said Pakistan's Shehbaz Sharif

Climate change is outpacing the capacity of developing nations to cope with its devastating impacts, the Pakistani premier told COP27 on Tuesday, as his country reels from historic floods.

Talks at the UN climate conference in Egypt have been dominated by calls for wealthier nations to fulfil pledges to financially help poorer nations green their economies and build resilience.

“The world is burning up faster than our capacity for recovery,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warned in his speech before the summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

“The current financing gap is too high to sustain any real recovery needs of those on the frontlines of climate catastrophe.”

Sharif argued Pakistan exemplifies the extreme vulnerability of nations in the developing world struggling to grow their economies while confronting a perfect storm of inflation, soaring debt and energy shortages — all compounded by global warming.

Catastrophic floods in Pakistan in August coming on the heels of a crippling two-month heat wave earlier in the year upended the lives of 33 million people and inundated a third of the country, he said.

“Raging torrents” from melting glaciers in northern Pakistan ripped up thousands of kilometres (miles) of roads and railway tracks, Sharif added.

The floods, which also swamped vast areas of key farmland, incurred damages exceeding $30 billion, according to the World Bank.

– ‘Gigantic task’ –

Pakistan, already facing a cost-of-living crisis, a nose-diving rupee and dwindling foreign exchange reserves, saw inflation surge after the floods.

“We have redirected our meagre resources to meet basic needs of millions of households affected by these devastating floods,” Sharif said. “And this all happened despite our very low carbon footprint.”

Rich nations historically responsible for rising temperatures have fallen short on delivering climate finance on several fronts, the prime minister said.

A 12-year old pledge made at COP15 to provide $100 billion a year to poorer countries by 2020 has still not been met and is $17 billion short.

A lightening-rod issue at COP27 is whether or not wealthy nations should commit to a separate financial facility for unavoidable impacts — from storms, heat waves and sea level rise, for example — known as “loss and damage”.  

“How on earth can one expect from us that we will undertake this gigantic task on our own?” Sharif said.

At a Monday meeting with Sharif, UN chief Antonio Guterres said the world needs to rethink the international financial system to provide debt relief to countries battered by climate impacts.

“Pakistan deserves massive support directly from the international community,” Guterres said.

Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine was introducing a plan to assess the impact of military actions on the environment

A fast-heating world “cannot afford a single gunshot”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the UN climate summit on Tuesday, arguing that Russia’s invasion threatened international efforts to tackle global warming.

Speaking by video-link to the COP27 climate talks in Egypt, Zelensky itemised the environmental fallout from the Russian assault on his country — from compelling countries to increase their use of coal to the disruption of grain supplies, worsening food crises stoked by drought.

“We must stop those who, with their insane and illegal war, are destroying the world’s ability to work united for a common goal,” he said.

Zelensky added world leaders must tell those who do not take climate change seriously that “they are making a catastrophic mistake.”

“They are the ones who start wars of aggression when the planet cannot afford a single gunshot, because it needs global joint actions.”

Zelensky said Ukraine was introducing a plan at the conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to assess the impact of military actions on climate and the environment.

The fighting has destroyed at least five million acres (two million hectares) of forest in Ukraine, according to Zelensky, while threatening “a radiation disaster” from the occupied Zaporizhzhia facility, Europe’s largest atomic power plant.

– Renewables ‘good for security’ –

In their statements to the summit, European leaders lined up to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine since February as a dangerous distraction from the severe and accelerating threats posed by climate change.

Speaking earlier at an event linked to the climate conference, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the transition from fossil fuels to renewables was “good for our security” as well as in tackling climate change.

He accused Russia of trying to use “energy as a weapon”.

“It is a stark reminder of the need to transition from dependence on fossil fuels to renewables,” Stoltenberg said.

He added that effective military activities in the future would also be green, suggesting armies should align their activities with the need to tackle warming.

Estimates of planet-warming emissions from the world’s militaries range between one and five percent of the global total, according to a commentary published in the journal Nature last week.

That is comparable to shipping or aviation — both around two percent, according to the paper led by researchers in Britain.

But they warned that armies are largely exempt from proper oversight, meaning efforts to cut emissions globally risked being “guesswork”.