Global climate cooperation holds firm despite turbulent geopolitics: UN climate chief
Belem (Brazil), Nov 23 (IANS) Global climate cooperation remains active and resilient despite an adverse political environment, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell has said.
“We knew this COP would take place in stormy political waters. Denial, division and geopolitics have dealt international cooperation heavy blows this year,” Stiell said in a statement assessing the results of the 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) on Saturday (local time).
Even so, he stressed that governments reaffirmed their resolve to act. “COP30 showed that climate cooperation is alive and kicking, keeping humanity in the fight for a livable planet, with the firm determination to keep 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach.”
“I am not saying we are winning the climate fight. But we are undeniably still in it, and we are fighting back,” he said, adding that 194 countries stood in “solidarity-rock-solid” in support of climate cooperation.
He noted the international community sent a united message about the direction of global climate efforts: “The global transition to low greenhouse-gas emissions and climate resilience is irreversible and the trend of the future.”
Stiell highlighted agreements on a just transition, a move to triple adaptation finance, and further support for countries hit the hardest by climate disasters, reports Xinhua news agency.
These steps, he said, will help ensure that “every nation and every person can share in the vast benefits” of the clean economy.
He cited progress made through the COP30 Action Agenda, including major commitments to clean grids, the protection or restoration of forests, land and oceans, and efforts that will increase the resilience of hundreds of millions of people. These outcomes, he stressed, are “real-world progress on the things billions of people care about most.”
Stiell said the world must now accelerate the implementation of national climate plans and maintain the momentum generated in Belem. “As we leave here, our job is to keep climate at the top of the agenda for another fifty years,” he said.
COP30 concluded Saturday in Belem, the capital of the Amazonian state of Para, with the approval of the final document, “Global Mutirao: Uniting humanity in a global mobilisation against climate change,” after about two weeks of negotiations under the Brazilian presidency.
–IANS
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