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US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry warned that the 'climate crisis … threatens every single aspect of our lives on a daily basis'

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 wealthier nations to step up their commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions and fulfil pledges to financially help poorer nations green their economies.

Developing countries devastated by natural disasters have argued for a windfall tax on the profits of oil companies and demanded that rich polluters compensate them for the damage caused by their emissions.

But the US midterm elections have also loomed large over the summit as 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 had pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. Biden returned the United States to the pact on his first day in office in 2020.

The “climate crisis doesn’t just threaten our infrastructure, economy and security — it threatens every single aspect of our lives on a daily basis,” 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.”

Biden won a major victory earlier this year when Congress passed the “Inflation Reduction Act”, which will see vast spending on green energy initiatives.

Some 100 world leaders were attending the summit on Monday and Tuesday but Biden will only come on Friday after the midterms. He then heads to Cambodia for the annual US-ASEAN summit and then on to Indonesia for a G20 summit.

– Oil profit tax –

The first day of the summit was marked by dire warnings from UN chief Antonio Guterres, who told the COP27 that humanity faces a stark choice: “cooperate or perish”.

Nations worldwide are coping with increasingly intense natural disasters that have taken thousands of lives this year and cost billions of dollars.

They range from devastating floods in Nigeria and Pakistan to droughts in the United States and several African nations, as well as unprecedented heatwaves across three continents.

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

A UN-backed report said Tuesday that 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 and cope with its impacts.

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

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 told fellow leaders.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called Monday for a 10 percent tax on oil companies to fund loss and damage.

Wind turbines on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, which has agreed on a large new wind energy project with the UAE

The United Arab Emirates and Egypt agreed Tuesday to develop one of the world’s largest wind farms in a deal struck on the sidelines of the UN’s COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. 

The 10-gigawatt (GW) onshore wind project in Egypt will produce 47,790 GWh of clean energy annually once it is completed, the UAE’s state news agency WAM said in a statement, without specifying an exact timeframe. 

It will offset 23.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions – equivalent to around nine percent of Egypt’s current CO2 output, according to WAM.

The wind farm will also save Egypt an estimated $5 billion in annual natural gas costs and help create as many as 100,000 jobs, it said. 

Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan joined his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the signing of the agreement between the UAE’s Masdar renewable energy firm and Egypt’s Infinity Power and Hassan Allam Utilities.

In a statement on Twitter, Sheikh Mohamed said the deal was “consistent with our commitment to advance renewable energy solutions that support sustainable development”.

The UN’s COP27 climate summit kicked off Sunday in Egypt with warnings against backsliding on efforts to cut emissions and calls for rich nations to compensate poor countries after a year of extreme weather disasters.  

“We will endeavour to take forward the gains made here at COP27, as the UAE prepares to host COP28 next year,” WAM quoted Emirati industry minister Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber as saying. 

COP28 will be held in the UAE from November 6-17, 2023. 

A new report is among the first to map out investment needed to cope with climate change impacts

Developing and emerging countries — excluding China — need investments well beyond $2 trillion annually by 2030 if the world is to stop the global warming juggernaut and cope with its impacts, according to a UN-backed report released Tuesday.

A trillion dollars should come from rich countries, investors and multilateral development banks, said the analysis commissioned by Britain and Egypt, hosts respectively of the 2021 UN climate summit in Glasgow and this week’s COP27 event in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The rest of the money — about $1.4 trillion — must originate domestically from private and public sources, said the report.

Current investments in emerging and developing economies other than China stand at about $500 billion.

The new 100-page analysis, Finance for Climate Action, is presented as an investment blueprint for greening the global economy quickly enough to meet Paris climate treaty goals of capping the rise in global temperatures below two degrees Celsius, and at 1.5C if possible.

Warming beyond that threshold, scientists warn, could push Earth toward an unlivable hothouse state.

“Rich countries should recognise that it is in their vital self-interest — as well as a matter of justice given the severe impacts caused by their high levels of current and past emissions — to invest in climate action in emerging market and developing countries,” said one of the report’s leads, economist Nicholas Stern, who also authored a landmark report on the economics of climate change.

The report is among the first to map out the investment needed across the three broad areas covered in UN climate talks: reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions that drive warming (mitigation), adapting to future climate impacts (adaptation), and compensating poor and vulnerable nations for unavoidable damages already incurred, known as “loss and damage”.

– Fossil fuel lock-in –

It calls for grants and low-interest loans from the governments of developed countries to double from about $30 billion annually today to $60 billion by 2025.

“These sources of finance are critical for emerging markets and developing countries to support action on restoring land and nature, and for protecting against and responding to the loss and damage due to climate change impacts,” the authors said. 

“Emerging market” countries include large economies in the global south that have seen rapid growth — coupled with rising greenhouse gas emissions — in recent decades, including India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Historically seen as part of this group, China was excluded from the new estimates, presumably because of its unique and hybrid status. 

Its economy — the second largest in the world — is in many respects advanced, and Beijing has positioned itself as a major international investor in its own right, through its Belt and Road Initiative and the promotion of “South-South” investment across the developing world.

In the context of climate change, developing nations include the world’s poorest economies, many of them in Africa, and those most vulnerable to climate hazards, such as small island states facing existential threats from sea-level rise and ever-more powerful cyclones.

“Most of the growth in energy infrastructure and consumption projected to occur over the next decade will be in emerging market and developing countries,” said Stern.

“If they lock in dependence on fossil fuels and emissions, the world will not be able to avoid dangerous climate change, damaging and destroying billions of lives and livelihoods in both rich and poor countries.”

Researchers and campaigners say that climate misinformation is thriving

Climate deniers looking to block action and “greenwashing” companies could have free rein on Twitter after Elon Musk’s takeover, analysts warned as leaders pursued anti-warming efforts at the COP27 summit.

The Tesla billionaire and self-declared free-speech absolutist has fired thousands of staff -– with sustainability executives Sean Boyle and Casey Junod among those signing off from the platform last week.

Musk has promised to reduce Twitter’s content restrictions and after the takeover announced plans to create a “content moderation council” to review policies.

“It’s not clear what Mr Musk really plans to do. However… if he removes all attempts at content moderation, we can expect a surge of disinformation, as well as increases in misleading and greenwashing advertisements,” said Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University who has authored leading studies on climate misinformation.

“Greenwashing” means companies misleading the public about their impact on the planet through messages and token gestures.

“We may also see an increase in hateful comments directed towards climate scientists and advocates, particularly women,” Oreskes said.

Following the buyout, one climate journalist tweeted that he had received death threats on the platform. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

– Sustainability execs axed –

Researchers and campaigners say that despite measures announced by social platforms, climate misinformation is thriving, undermining belief in climate change and the action needed to tackle it.

Twitter and other tech giants such as Facebook and Google have said they are acting to make false claims less visible.

But the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank said in a detailed study this year that messages aiming to “deny, deceive and delay” regarding climate action were prevalent across social media.

Under Twitter’s policy before the takeover, it said “misleading advertisements on Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus on climate change are prohibited”.

“We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetised on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” Boyle and Junod wrote in an Earth Day post on Twitter’s blog.

Both posted messages on November 4 with the hashtag “LoveWhereYouWorked”, indicating they were among those laid off after Musk’s $44-million takeover. They did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

– Scientists at risk –

Beyond false information, some specialists warned that climate scientists themselves face threats if moderation falters.

A surge in hate speech drove Twitter’s head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth to respond, trying to calm concerns. He tweeted that the platform’s “core moderation capabilities remain in place”.

Musk wrote on November 4 that “Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged.”

“I worry that scientific falsehoods will find a bigger platform on Twitter under Musk’s leadership,” said Genevieve Guenther, founder of the media activism group End Climate Silence.

“But I worry even more that the website will start deplatforming climate scientists and advocates who criticise right-wing views, preventing them from connecting to each other and to decision-makers in media and government.”

– Blue ticks at COP? –

Among Musk’s plans is an $8 monthly charge for users to have a blue tick by their name — currently a mark of authenticity for officials, celebrities, journalists and others.

“To me, this is opening the door to highly coordinated disinformation and manipulation,” said Melissa Aronczyk, an associate professor in communication and information at Rutgers University.

Musk said the move aims to reduce hate speech by making it too expensive for trolls to have multiple accounts.

Aronczyk argued the system would give a mark of authenticity to those willing to pay for a blue tick to push an agenda.

She pointed to the controversy around Hill+Knowlton Strategies — a PR company working for big fossil fuel companies -– reportedly hired by host Egypt to handle public relations for the COP27 summit.

“Picture every Hill+Knowlton staffer working for COP27 creating a network of blue-check accounts to promote the business-led initiatives at the summit. Or downplaying the conflicts. Or ignoring protests,” Aronczyk said.

“It’s basically letting corporate greenwashing become the default communication style around climate change.”

Mumbai, one of India's biggest cities, grew by about eight million people in the past 30 years — equivalent to the entirety of New York City's population

India is projected to see an explosion in its urban population in the coming decades, but its cities already cannot cope and climate change will make living conditions harsher still.

The metropolis of Mumbai, one of India’s biggest, grew by some eight million people in the past 30 years — the rough equivalent of the whole of New York City — to a population of 20 million, and is forecast to add another seven million by 2035.

Like other Indian megacities, Mumbai’s housing, transport, water and waste management infrastructure has not kept pace, with around 40 percent of people living in slums.

These crowded collections of ramshackle buildings, side by side with some of India’s richest neighbourhoods, often have no regular water, power supply or proper sanitation.

As the world’s population approaches eight billion, most of them in the developing world, it is a situation replicated globally.

Those living on the outskirts of Mumbai commute for hours to work, with many hanging out of doors on packed trains, and others travelling by car or motorbike on clogged, pothole-filled roads that flood during the monsoon.

In the biggest slum, Dharavi of “Slumdog Millionaire” fame, where a million people live, Mohammed Sartaj Khan arrived from rural Uttar Pradesh as a teenager and works in a tannery.

“My childhood was wonderful in the village. It has a peaceful environment unlike the crowd here,” Khan, now 35, told AFP in Dharavi’s warren of lanes.

“When I came here, I saw people running like ants,” he said. “The way ants keep walking in their lanes despite the crowd… Nobody cares about others.”

But in his village, he added, “people don’t have money”. 

At first, he earned 6,000 rupees ($70) a month in Mumbai but now operates a machine and makes four times that, most of which he sends back to his wife and children — whom he can seldom afford to visit.

– Premature deaths –

The UN projects that India’s population will rise from its current 1.4 billion to overtake China’s and peak at 1.7 billion in the 2060s, before dropping back to 1.5 billion by the start of the next century.

By 2040, 270 million more people will live in Indian cities, according to the International Energy Agency, driving carbon emissions higher from power generation and transport, and from the production of steel and concrete to house them.

Overcrowding, shoddy infrastructure and severe air, water and noise pollution are part of everyday life in India’s megacities.

About 70 percent of the billions of litres of sewage produced in urban centres every day goes untreated, a government report said last year.

Every winter, the capital New Delhi, home to 20 million people, is cloaked in toxic air pollution that, according to one Lancet study, caused almost 17,500 premature deaths in 2019.

– Droughts and floods –

Millions of people in Indian cities have no regular running water and rely on deliveries by truck or train. 

People in Delhi and elsewhere are digging ever-deeper wells as groundwater levels sink.

Chennai in southeastern India ran out of water in the summer of 2019, a crisis blamed on both insufficient rains and urban sprawl onto former wetlands.

At the same time, urban flooding is increasingly frequent.

The tech hub of Bengaluru — formerly Bangalore — has some of India’s worst traffic congestion and saw inundations in September blamed on unauthorised construction.

Natural catastrophes are forecast to cause more and more misery for India’s cities as the planet’s climate warms and makes weather more volatile.

Scientists believe the annual monsoon rainy season is becoming more erratic and more powerful, causing more flooding and also more droughts.

Rising temperatures are making Indian summers ever more scorching, particularly in urban areas full of concrete trapping the heat. This year, India saw its hottest March on record.

And while Covid-19 did not affect India’s slums as badly as some had feared, overcrowding puts them at risk in future epidemics.

Poonam Muttreja from the Population Foundation of India said more investment in the rural economy could stem migration to cities, while new incentives could encourage people to move to smaller urban centres.

“Poor people, especially migrants in cities, are at the worst risk of climate change, whether it is the changes in the weather or flooding, jobs, lack of infrastructure,” Muttreja told AFP.

“India has to have a paradigm shift. And instead of complaining, we need to start doing something.”

Photo d'illustration dans une boîte de nuit à Saint-Jean-de-Monts en France en juillet 2021

Electronic music lovers know the drill: as soon as the DJ turns up the bass, the crowd goes wild and dances with heightened enthusiasm. But to what extent is this a conscious reaction?

Researchers have taken a closer look at the relationship between bass frequencies and dancing, thanks to an experiment conducted during a real-life electronic music concert.

The results, published Monday in the journal Current Biology, showed that participants danced almost 12 percent more when researchers introduced a very low frequency bass — one that dancers could not hear.

“They couldn’t tell when those changes happened, but it was driving their movements,” neuroscientist David Cameron of McMaster University, who led the study, told AFP.

The results confirm the special relationship between bass and dance, which has never been scientifically proven.

– The pulse of the music –

Cameron, a trained drummer, notes that people attending electronic music concerts “love when they can feel the bass so strong” and tend to turn it up very loud.

But they are not alone.

In many cultures and traditions across the world “it tends to be the low-frequency instruments like the bass guitar or the bass drum, that give the pulse of the music” that gets humans moving.

“What we didn’t know is, can you actually make people dance more with bass?” said Cameron.

The experiment took place in Canada, in a building known as LIVElab, which served both as a concert hall and a research laboratory.

About 60 out of 130 people who went to see a concert by electronic music duo Orphyx were equipped with motion-sensing headbands to monitor their dance moves. 

During the concert, researchers intermittently turned very-low bass-playing speakers on and off.

A questionnaire filled out by concert-goers confirmed that the sound was undetectable. This allowed researchers to isolate the impact of the bass and avoid other factors, such as dancers reacting to a popular part of a song.

– Below the level of consciousness –

“I was impressed with the effect,” said Cameron.

His theory is that even when undetected, the bass stimulates sensory systems in the body, such as the skin and the vestibular system — more commonly known as the inner ear.

These systems have a very close connection to the motor system — responsible for movement — but in an intuitive way that bypasses the frontal cortex.

He compares it to the way the body keeps the lungs breathing and the heart beating.

“It is below the level of consciousness.”

Cameron said the research team believes the stimulation of these systems “give a little boost to your motor system. And that adds a little bit of energy and vigor to your real-world movements.”

He hopes to verify this hypothesis in future experiments.

As for why humans dance at all, the mystery endures.

“I’ve always been interested in rhythm, and especially what it is about rhythm that makes us want to move,” in the absence of a specific function of dance.

Most theories revolve around the idea of social cohesion.

“When you synchronize with people, you tend to feel bonded with them a little bit afterward. You feel good afterwards,” said Cameron.

“By making music together, that allows us to feel better together as a group, and then we function better as a group, and we can be more efficient, and we can have more peace.”

Photo d'illustration dans une boîte de nuit à Saint-Jean-de-Monts en France en juillet 2021

Electronic music lovers know the drill: as soon as the DJ turns up the bass, the crowd goes wild and dances with heightened enthusiasm. But to what extent is this a conscious reaction?

Researchers have taken a closer look at the relationship between bass frequencies and dancing, thanks to an experiment conducted during a real-life electronic music concert.

The results, published Monday in the journal Current Biology, showed that participants danced almost 12 percent more when researchers introduced a very low frequency bass — one that dancers could not hear.

“They couldn’t tell when those changes happened, but it was driving their movements,” neuroscientist David Cameron of McMaster University, who led the study, told AFP.

The results confirm the special relationship between bass and dance, which has never been scientifically proven.

– The pulse of the music –

Cameron, a trained drummer, notes that people attending electronic music concerts “love when they can feel the bass so strong” and tend to turn it up very loud.

But they are not alone.

In many cultures and traditions across the world “it tends to be the low-frequency instruments like the bass guitar or the bass drum, that give the pulse of the music” that gets humans moving.

“What we didn’t know is, can you actually make people dance more with bass?” said Cameron.

The experiment took place in Canada, in a building known as LIVElab, which served both as a concert hall and a research laboratory.

About 60 out of 130 people who went to see a concert by electronic music duo Orphyx were equipped with motion-sensing headbands to monitor their dance moves. 

During the concert, researchers intermittently turned very-low bass-playing speakers on and off.

A questionnaire filled out by concert-goers confirmed that the sound was undetectable. This allowed researchers to isolate the impact of the bass and avoid other factors, such as dancers reacting to a popular part of a song.

– Below the level of consciousness –

“I was impressed with the effect,” said Cameron.

His theory is that even when undetected, the bass stimulates sensory systems in the body, such as the skin and the vestibular system — more commonly known as the inner ear.

These systems have a very close connection to the motor system — responsible for movement — but in an intuitive way that bypasses the frontal cortex.

He compares it to the way the body keeps the lungs breathing and the heart beating.

“It is below the level of consciousness.”

Cameron said the research team believes the stimulation of these systems “give a little boost to your motor system. And that adds a little bit of energy and vigor to your real-world movements.”

He hopes to verify this hypothesis in future experiments.

As for why humans dance at all, the mystery endures.

“I’ve always been interested in rhythm, and especially what it is about rhythm that makes us want to move,” in the absence of a specific function of dance.

Most theories revolve around the idea of social cohesion.

“When you synchronize with people, you tend to feel bonded with them a little bit afterward. You feel good afterwards,” said Cameron.

“By making music together, that allows us to feel better together as a group, and then we function better as a group, and we can be more efficient, and we can have more peace.”

This year has seen unprecedented heatwaves: Lake Poopo, once Bolivia's second-largest, has largely disappeared. Felix Mauricio of the Uru Murato indigenous community shows a miniature replica of the type of boat once used there, on October 15, 2022

The UN’s chief warned Monday that nations must cooperate or face “collective suicide” in the fight against climate change, at a summit where developing countries reeling from global warming demanded more action from rich polluters.

Nearly 100 heads of state and government are meeting for two days in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, facing calls to deepen emissions cuts and financially back developing countries already devastated by the effects of rising temperatures.

“Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish,” Guterres told the UN COP27 summit.

“It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact,” he added.

Guterres urged the world to ramp up the transition to renewable energy, and for richer polluting nations to come to the aid of poorer countries least responsible for heat-trapping emissions.

He said the target should be to provide renewable and affordable energy for all, calling on the United States and China in particular to lead the way.

US-Sino tensions, however, have prompted Beijing to freeze climate cooperation with Washington.

President Xi Jinping is absent from the summit, while President Joe Biden will attend it later this week after US midterm elections.

– ‘Persisting distrust’ –

Nations worldwide are coping with increasingly intense natural disasters that have taken thousands of lives this year and cost billions of dollars.

They range from devastating floods in Nigeria and Pakistan to droughts in the United States and several African nations, as well as unprecedented heatwaves across three continents.

“We have seen one catastrophe after another,” said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. “Is it not high time to put an end to all this suffering?”

Money has emerged as a major issue at COP27, with wealthy countries scolded for failing to fulfil their pledge to provide $100 billion per year to help developing countries green their economies.

This is a “major cause for persisting distrust, and neither is there any sound reason for the continuing pollution”, said Kenyan President William Ruto, who announced an African climate summit for next year.

A salvo of crises — from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to soaring inflation and the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic — have raised concerns that climate change has dropped down the priority list of governments.

– ‘Highway to climate hell’ –

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said President Vladimir Putin’s “abhorrent war in Ukraine and rising energy prices across the world are not a reason to go slow on climate change.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose gas-dependent economy has been squeezed hard by cuts in Russian supplies, also warned against a “worldwide renaissance of fossil fuels”

Guterres called for a “historic” deal between rich emitters and emerging economies, with countries doubling down on emissions reductions to hold the rise in temperatures to the more ambitions Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era.

Current trends would see carbon pollution increase 10 percent by the end of the decade and put the world on a path to heat up to 2.8C.

“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator,” Guterres said.

Poorer countries successfully fought to have the issue of “loss and damage” — compensation for the damage caused by climate-enhanced natural disasters — officially put on the COP27 agenda.

“We, the oceanic states that suffer the harsh effects of your activities, have to be assisted in repairing the damage you cause to us,” said Seychelles President Wavel Ramkalawan, whose island nation is threatened by rising waters.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called for a windfall tax on the profits of oil companies, that would be funnelled to a loss and damage fund.

– ‘Living nightmare’ –

The United States and the European Union have dragged their feet for years on compensation for climate impacts, fearing it would create an open-ended reparations framework.

“Loss and damage is not an abstract topic of endless dialogue,” Ruto said. “It is our daily experience and the living nightmare for hundreds of millions of Africans”.

Guterres said that getting “concrete results on loss and damage is a litmus test of the commitment of governments to the success of COP27.”

In a possible blueprint for other developing nations, a group of wealthy nations approved a plan paving the way for South Africa to receive $8.5 billion in loans and grants to move away from coal.

COP27 is scheduled to continue through November 18, with ministers joining the fray during the second week.

Security is tight at the meeting, with Human Rights Watch saying authorities have arrested dozens of people and restricted the right to demonstrate in the days leading up to COP27.

bur-lth/pjm

Kenyan women carrying firewood walk past a carcass of a cow in the drought-hit Loiyangalani region in July

The crushing impacts of climate change are already a “living nightmare” for people across Africa, Kenyan President William Ruto told world leaders at UN talks on Monday.

The UN climate Conference of the Parties talks in Egypt, billed as the “African COP”, are set to be dominated by calls from developing countries that rich polluters pay for the harm their emissions have already caused, known as “loss and damage”.

“Africa contributes less than three percent of the pollution responsible for climate change, but it’s most severely impacted by the ensuing crisis,” Ruto said.

The worst drought in 40 years is gripping Kenya and the wider Horn of Africa region, threatening millions with starvation — with the UN warning Somalia is on the brink of a famine for the second time in just over a decade.

Some 2.5 million livestock have died in Kenya this year alone, Ruto said, causing economic losses of more than $1.5 billion.

Poorer countries successfully fought to have the issue of loss and damage officially put on the COP27 agenda — despite reluctance over the issue from richer nations, wary of open-ended compensation for the damage caused by climate-induced natural disasters.

But observers caution that this is only a first step towards what developing nations hope will be a specific fund to help with climate impacts.

– ‘Persisting distrust’ –

“Loss and damage is not an abstract topic of endless dialogue,” Ruto said, speaking on behalf of the Africa negotiating group. 

“It is our daily experience and the living nightmare for millions of Kenyans, and hundreds of millions of Africans.”

He said the country had had to reallocate funds budgeted for education and health for an emergency food relief programme for 4.3 million Kenyans, adding that “climate change is directly threatening our people’s lives, health and future”.

Wildlife has not been spared in the country rich with biodiversity. 

“Carcasses of elephants, zebras, wildebeest and many other wild fauna litter our parks,” he said, adding the government has spent $3 million on supplying feed and water to animals in distress in the last three months. 

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in February warned that tens of millions of Africans face a future marked by drought, disease and displacement due to global heating.

Wealthy nations have failed to provide a pledged $100 billion a year from 2020 to developing nations to help them build resilience and green their economies, reaching just $83 billion according to the UN.

This is a “major cause for persisting distrust”, Ruto said.

But he stressed that the continent presented huge economic opportunities and a chance to curb emissions and announced an African summit focusing on climate action next year.

“Africa’s vast tracts of land, deep treasures of diverse natural resources, tremendous untapped renewable energy potential, and a youthful, dynamic, and skilled workforce. constitute the continent’s irresistible credentials,” he said.

This year has seen unprecedented heatwaves: Lake Poopo, once Bolivia's second-largest, has largely disappeared. Felix Mauricio of the Uru Murato indigenous community shows a miniature replica of the type of boat once used there, on October 15, 2022

The UN’s chief warned Monday that nations must cooperate or face “collective suicide” in the fight against climate change, at a summit where developing countries reeling from global warming demanded more action from rich polluters.

Nearly 100 heads of state and government are meeting for two days in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, facing calls to deepen emissions cuts and financially back developing countries already devastated by the effects of rising temperatures.

“Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish,” Guterres told the UN COP27 summit.

“It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact,” Guterres said.

He urged the world to ramp up the transition to renewable energy, and for richer polluting nations to come to the aid of poorer countries least responsible for heat-trapping emissions.

Guterres said the target should be to provide renewable and affordable energy for all, calling on the United States and China in particular to lead the way.

US-Sino tensions, however, have prompted Beijing to freeze climate cooperation with Washington. President Xi Jinping is absent from the summit, while President Joe Biden will attend it later this week after US midterm elections.

– ‘Persisting distrust’ –

Nations worldwide are coping with increasingly intense natural disasters that have taken thousands of lives this year and cost billions of dollars.

They range from devastating floods in Nigeria and Pakistan to droughts in the United States and several African nations, as well as unprecedented heatwaves across three continents.

“We have seen one catastrophe after another,” said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. “Is it not high time to put an end to all this suffering?”

Money has emerged as a major issue at COP27, with wealthy countries scolded for failing to fulfil their pledge to provide $100 billion per year to help developing countries green their economies.

This is a “major cause for persisting distrust, and neither is there any sound reason for the continuing pollution”, said Kenyan President William Ruto, who announced an African climate summit for next year.

A salvo of crises — from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to soaring inflation and the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic — has raised concerns that climate change has dropped down the priority list of governments.

– ‘Highway to climate hell’ –

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said President Vladimir Putin’s “abhorrent war in Ukraine and rising energy prices across the world are not a reason to go slow on climate change.”

Guterres called for a “historic” deal between rich emitters and emerging economies, with countries doubling down on emissions reductions to hold the rise in temperatures to the more ambitions Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era.

Current trends would see carbon pollution increase 10 percent by the end of the decade and put the world on a path to heat up to 2.8C.

“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator,” Guterres said.

Poorer countries successfully fought to have the issue of “loss and damage” — compensation for the damage caused by climate-enhanced natural disasters — officially put on the COP27 agenda.

“We, the oceanic states that suffer the harsh effects of your activities, have to be assisted in repairing the damage you cause to us,” said Seychelles President Wavel Ramkalawan, whose island nation is threatened by rising waters.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called for a windfall tax on the profits of oil companies, that would be funnelled to a loss and damage fund.

– ‘Living nightmare’ –

The United States and the European Union have dragged their feet for years on compensation for climate impacts, fearing it would create an open-ended reparations framework.

“Loss and damage is not an abstract topic of endless dialogue,” Ruto said. “It is our daily experience and the living nightmare for hundreds of millions of Africans”.

Guterres said that getting “concrete results on loss and damage is a litmus test of the commitment of governments to the success of COP27.”

COP27 is scheduled to continue through November 18, with ministers joining the fray during the second week.

Security is tight at the meeting, with Human Rights Watch saying authorities have arrested dozens of people and restricted the right to demonstrate in the days leading up to COP27.

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