The UN’s weather and climate body released its annual global climate report on Sunday with yet another warning that the goal of limiting temperature increases to 1.5C (2.7F) was “barely within reach”. . Accelerating heat waves, melting glaciers and torrential rains have led to an increase in natural disasters, the World Meteorological Organization said at the start of the COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. “As COP27 begins, our planet is sending a distress signal,” said Guterres, who described the report as “a chronicle of climate chaos.” Representatives from nearly 200 nations gathered in Egypt to discuss how to keep temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a goal some scientists say is now unattainable. The Earth has warmed more than 1.1C since the late 19th century with about half of that increase occurring in the past 30 years, the report showed. This year is on track to be the fifth or sixth warmest on record, despite the impact since 2020 of La Nina, a periodic and naturally occurring atmosphere-cooling Pacific phenomenon. “All climate indications are negative,” World Meteorological Organization chief Petri Taalas told Al Jazeera from Sharm el-Sheikh. “We have broken records for the main greenhouse gas concentrations, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide [levels].” “I think the combination of the facts that we’re bringing to the table and the fact that we’re starting to see the effects of climate change globally … are awakenings and that’s why we’re having this climate conference,” he said. Surface waters in the oceans hit record high temperatures in 2021 after warming particularly rapidly over the past 20 years. Surface water is responsible for absorbing over 90 percent of the accumulated heat from human carbon emissions. Marine heat waves were also on the rise, adversely affecting coral reefs and the half a billion people who depend on them for food and livelihoods. The report warned that more than 50 percent of the ocean surface experienced at least one marine heat wave in 2022. Sea level rise has also doubled in the past 30 years as ice sheets and glaciers have been melting at a rapid rate. The phenomenon threatens tens of millions of people living in low-lying coastal areas. “The messages in this report could hardly be bleaker,” said Mike Meredith, head of science at the British Antarctic Survey. In March and April, a heat wave in South Asia was followed by floods in Pakistan, which left a third of the country under water. At least 1,700 people died and eight million were displaced. In East Africa, rainfall has been below average in four consecutive wet seasons, the longest in 40 years, with 2022 expected to deepen the drought. China saw the longest and most intense heat wave on record and the second driest summer. Similarly in Europe, repeated bouts of high temperatures caused many deaths. Talks about “losses and damages”. The UN warning came as delegates at the summit agreed to hold talks on reparations from rich countries to poorer states most likely to be affected by climate change. “This creates for the first time an institutionally stable space on the official COP and Paris Agreement agenda to discuss the pressing issue of the financing arrangements needed to address existing gaps, responding to loss and damage,” said the president of the COP27, Sameh Shoukry. conferences. Poorer nations that are less responsible for the emissions that cause climate warming, but are more vulnerable to its effects, suffer the most and therefore demand what are also called “climate reparations”. This issue, which was added to Sunday’s agenda in Egypt, is expected to cause tension. At COP26 last year in Glasgow, high-income states blocked a proposal for a damage financing body and instead supported three-year financing discussions. The damage and loss discussions now on the COP27 agenda will not include liability or binding compensation, but are intended to lead to a final decision “no later than 2024,” Soukry said. “The inclusion of this agenda reflects a sense of solidarity for the victims of climate disasters,” he said.
