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The UN’s COP27 climate summit kicked off Sunday in Egypt after a year of extreme weather disasters that have fuelled calls for wealthy industrialized nations to compensate poorer countries.
Just in the past few months, climate-induced catastrophes have killed thousands, displaced millions, and cost billions in damages across the world.
Massive floods devastated swaths of Pakistan and Nigeria, droughts worsened in Africa and the western United States, cyclones whipped the Caribbean, and unprecedented heatwaves seared three continents.
The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh comes in a fraught year marked by Russia’s war on Ukraine, an energy crunch, soaring inflation, and the lingering effects from the Covid pandemic.
“Whilst I do understand that leaders around the world have faced competing priorities this year, we must be clear: as challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe,” said Alok Sharma, British president of the previous COP26 as he handed over the chairmanship to Egypt.
“How many more wake-up calls does the world — and world leaders — actually need,” he said at the opening ceremony.
The world must slash greenhouse emissions 45 percent by 2030 to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above late-19th-century levels.
Warming beyond that threshold, scientists warn, could push Earth toward an unlivable hothouse state.
