The crises that shake the world should not hinder the fight against the climate crisis, already very timid, said this Monday (6) the executive secretary of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). , opening negotiations that should give impetus to the next climate conference in November in Egypt.
Representatives from around 200 countries are meeting for 11 days of “intermediate session” in Bonn, headquarters of the UN specialized agency, to try to achieve the ambition presented six months ago, during COP26 in Glasgow.
The international community then reaffirmed the objective – for now out of reach – of containing global warming to 1.5°C when we are already at 1.1°C since humanity started to use fossil energies industrially.
Since then, the world has been rocked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its fallout on energy and food markets, often pushing the climate crisis into the background despite the release of an alarming new IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. the UN climate experts.
“It is not acceptable to say that we are living in difficult times” to justify inaction, because “climate change is not an issue that we can put off until later,” said Patricia Espinosa, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, at the opening of the negotiations.
“Very difficult decisions”
Because key points remain on hold just a few months away from the next COP27, November 7-18 in Sharm al-Sheikh, on the Red Sea.
And firstly, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming. “We are far from where science tells us we should be,” Espinosa insisted, warning “that we will have to make very difficult decisions.”
The “climate pact” reached in Glasgow called on countries to “revisit and strengthen” their goals to “align” them with those of the Paris agreement “by the end of 2022”. “We need those plans!” launched the executive secretary, calling for “faster progress”.
The Paris agreement, a key piece in the fight against climate change, aims to “contain the rise in the planet’s average temperature well below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels” and if possible to 1.5°C.
However, many countries are not meeting their current commitments which nevertheless leave the Paris goals “out of reach”, according to IPCC experts.
They estimate that the world is currently on a catastrophic warming trajectory of 2.8°C.
The absence of new quantified commitments a few months before COP27 illustrates the “disconnection between the scientific evidence of a global crisis in the making, with unimaginable climate impacts, and the lack of action”, laments Johan Rockström, director of the Impact Research Institute. of Climate Change in Potsdam (PIK).
“Clear vision”
Another issue is the help from rich countries, often the biggest historical emitters, to the poorest, those least responsible for global warming, but often at the forefront of its impacts.
The pledge to help them meet the challenges of climate change on the order of US$ 100 billion (R$ 479.6 billion) a year in 2020 has yet to be fulfilled.
And faced with the multiplication of droughts, floods and fires or the inexorable rise of the oceans, it is the specific financing of the “loss and damage” suffered that is now on the table.
Rich countries blocked this request in Glasgow, with a final compromise on creating a “dialogue” framework by 2024 to “discuss funding modalities”.
This “controversial issue must be approached constructively and with a vision of the future”, Espinosa said, also asking for better funding for adapting to the effects of global warming.
Because distrust persists. Bonn should not be “just another forum for discussions”, warned the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), which requires “a clear vision of when and how (will be applied) specific damages financing”.
And for the Climate Action Network, the leading global federation of environmental NGOs, the negotiations must “set clear expectations and prepare key measures” to materialize in Sharm el-Sheikh, “focusing on the needs of those most affected by the impacts of the crisis climate”.
