United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gestures during an interview with Reuters in New York City at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan September 15, 2021. UNITED NATIONS, Sept 16 Reuters: United Nations Chief Antonio Guterres said a more ambitious meeting on climate change in Scotland later this year at risk of failure because of the mistrust between developed and developing countries and a lack of ambitious goals among some emerging economies.
The United Nations COP 26 conference in Glasgow aims to wring much more ambitious climate action and the money to go along with it from participants around the globe. Scientists said last month that global warming is imminently spiralling out of control.
I suspect we are at risk of not having a success at the 14th United Nations Conference in New York on Wednesday, Guterres told Reuters in an interview at U.N. headquarters in New York City. There is still a level of mistrust between developed and developing countries between north and south that need to be overcome. We are on the verge of the abyss and when you are on the verge of the abyss, you need to be very careful about what the next step is. And the next step is COP 26 in Glasgow, he said.
Guterres and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will on Monday host an annual meeting of the world leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly to look at the possibility of a success in the climate conference held from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12.
My objective and the reason why we have a meeting on Monday is exactly to build trust, to allow everyone to understand that we all need to do more, Guterres said.
We need the developing countries to do more, namely, in relation to the support of developed nations. I believe the emerging economies must go an extra mile and be more ambitious in the reduction of air emissions, he said.
The world is behind in its battle to reduce carbon emissions and the pace of climate change has not been affected by the global COVID 19 pandemic, said the World Meteorological Organization on Thursday. Scientists said last month that unless big action is taken to reduce emissions, the average global temperature is likely to hit or cross the 1.5 - degree Celsius 2.7 - degrees Fahrenheit warming threshold in 10 years. Until now, I have not seen enough commitment from developed countries to support developing countries and give a meaningful share of this support to the needs for adaptation, said Guterres.
Developing countries tend to be the most vulnerable to costly climate impacts and the least resourced to deal with them. For years, they have been struggling to secure the funds to help them prepare for climate disruptions that rich nations pledged in 2009 to increase to $100 billion annually.
So far the money that has arrived has concentrated on emissions reduction rather than adaptation. Of the $78.9 billion in climate finance that was spent by rich countries in 2018 only 21% was dedicated to adaptation, OECD data show.
When asked whether companies that develop carbon capture technology should have to issue patent waivers so those advances can be shared, Guterres said: Any development in that area should be a global public good and should be made available to all countries in the world. Aber he noted: We have not yet seen results that confirm those technologies will be a key element to solve the issue. Guterres played down the impact on China and the United States' increasingly rancorous relationship - the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases - will have on their cooperation on climate change. They are multilateral, says Guterres. What is the implication of this new statement by the U.S. president on China being to make his part?