The Climate Implementation Summit gets underway
Wherever you are, good evening from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt!
It’s the first day of the COP27 World Leaders Summit, or the ‘Climate Implementation Summit’ as it’s been dubbed by the conference’s Egyptian Presidency, making a strong statement about the need for negotiators to focus more on actions than words.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, world Leaders including Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, three women experts – an economist, an academic, and a youth activist – and former US vice-president Al Gore took the stage during the opening segment of the event.
The themes: renewable energy, climate justice, solidarity, and loss and damage.
The mantra: “Implementation, implementation, implementation”.
The end goal: There is still a path to curb global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but leaders must cooperate, update and implement their climate plans taking into account that the most vulnerable and those barely contributing to global emissions are facing the worst consequences of climate change.
The power of the purse is key to what has been characterized as “a battle for survival”.
You can find all the highlights of today’s high-level opening, including the Secretary-General’s strong call for a Climate Solidarity Pact in our featured story just below.
More than 40 leaders today made their national statements, and over 50 will be present tomorrow during the second day of the Summit.
Many of the speakers described with grave concern the suffering that their countries are facing due to extreme weather events, including floods, droughts, hurricanes and sea level rise.
The impacts of these disasters include but are not limited to food and water shortages, mass human displacement and death.
Some leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, also spoke of the war in Ukraine, urging peace and promising not to deviate from their climate goals because of the energy crisis.
Meanwhile, representatives from some of the countries hit the hardest by climate change, including Pakistan, which suffered unprecedented floods that devastated the country this past summer, called for climate justice.
Secretary-General Guterres, alongside Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, said that the international community has a duty to provide support.
“What goes on in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan,” he warned, describing his recent visit to the nation as a moment which marked him deeply.
Regarding new initiatives, two were launched today by the UN, one to drive finance to early warning systems, and another to promote drought resilience.
In today’s newsletter, you will find more about these efforts, as well as our daily COP27 podcast, and more, just a scroll away.
For more information, visit:https://news.un.org/en/