By Muhammad Amaan
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said developed countries must honour the promise of $100 billion a year in climate finance.
He said they must also deliver a clear plan on how they would meet their commitment to double adaptation finance to at least 40 billion dollars a year by 2025.
Gutteres made the call on Monday at a virtual news conference organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to launch the 2023 edition of the Emissions Gap Report (EGR).
EGR 2023 is the 14th edition in a series that brings together top climate scientists to look at future trends in greenhouse gas emissions and provide solutions to the challenge of global warming.
According to Guterres, the EGR shows that if nothing changes in 2030, emissions will be 22 gigatons higher than the 1.5-degree limit will allow.
He said it showed greenhouse emissions reaching an all-time high, a 1.2 per cent increase on the last year, when those levels should be shooting down.
Guterres said at a time of doubt, division and distrust, the response to the global stocktake was needed to restore credibility in climate action.
“Specifically in their response to the global stocktake, countries must commit to triple renewables capacity, double energy efficiency and bring clean power to all by 2030.
“They must also commit to phasing out fossil fuels with a clear timeframe aligned to the 1.5-degree limits. Otherwise, we are simply inflating the lifeboats while breaking the horse,” he said.
According to Guterres, achieving these depends on countries cooperating and working together.
He noted that the recent climate statement between China and the U.S. was a positive first step, adding that much more needed to be done.
This, he said, depended on restoring trust between developed and developing countries, which had been badly damaged by broken promises and sluggish action.
“Leaders must drastically up their game now with record ambition, record action and record emissions reductions. The next round of national climate plans will be pivotal.
“These plans must be backed with the finance, technology support and partnerships to make them possible and the task of leaders of CoP28 is to make sure that happens.
“CoP 28 must set us up for dramatic climate action now.
“This CoP will respond to the global stock take an inventory of countries climate plans which will show just how far the world is from meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. That response is vital,” he said.
He added that voluntary initiatives, non-binding commitments could play an important role, but they were not substitutes for a global response agreed by all and the response to the global stocktake must light the fuse to an explosion of ambition in 2025.
On her part, Inger Andersen, UNEP Executive Director, said climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and the global average temperatures were hitting new highs, while extreme weather events were occurring more and more often.
“The 2023 edition of the EGR tells us that it is going to take a massive emergence shift to avoid these records falling year after year.
“We must start setting other records on cutting emissions, on green and just transitions and on climate finance,” she said.
