COP29: UN Chief Warns of Climate Disaster if Nations Don’t Pay

At COP29, the UN Secretary-General emphasized the urgent need for nations to fulfill their financial commitments to combat climate change. He warned that failure to do so could result in devastating global consequences, urging world leaders to act decisively to prevent a climate-driven disaster that threatens the future of humanity and the planet’s sustainability.

Almost 200 countries have assembled at the annual UN climate conference in Baku. This year’s focus is on generating hundreds of billions of dollars to support a worldwide shift to cleaner energy alternatives.

At COP29, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged world leaders to "pay up" in order to prevent climate-driven humanitarian disasters, stressing the urgency to curb global temperature rises. He warned that time was running out to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C, with this year potentially being the hottest on record. Guterres emphasized that without significant funding for climate action, humanity would face severe consequences.

Almost 200 countries have gathered at the summit in Baku, focusing on raising billions of dollars to support the transition to cleaner energy sources and mitigate the damage caused by carbon emissions. However, many key leaders were absent, including US President Joe Biden, who skipped the event after Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Guterres warned that climate finance is critical, stating, "The world must pay up, or humanity will pay the price." He also noted that global warming and its impacts are advancing faster than anticipated, with the world possibly already having reached the critical 1.5°C threshold.

As the summit began, wildfires on the US East Coast and catastrophic flooding in Spain underscored the urgency of addressing climate change. The summit's opening was delayed due to disagreements over the focus on fossil fuels, with European and small island nations clashing with Arab countries over the issue.

Despite these tensions, COP29 officials stressed the summit’s primary objective: securing up to $1 trillion annually in climate finance for developing nations. Simon Stiell, head of the UNFCCC, warned that the climate crisis is becoming a major economic threat, with rising emissions affecting every country.

In a positive development, the world’s top multilateral banks pledged to increase climate finance for low and middle-income countries to $120 billion annually by 2030. This commitment represents a 60% increase from last year’s funding and supports the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C by 2050.

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Source: Business Standard‍