UN warns world is speeding down a “highway to hell” as COP27 leaders open two weeks of talks in resort town

UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-General Antonio Guterres has declared a lack of progress on climate change has the world speeding down a “highway to hell”, as world leaders frame the fight against global warming as a battle for human survival during opening speeches at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.

Stark messages — echoed by the heads of African, European and Middle Eastern nations alike — set an urgent tone as governments began two weeks of talks in the seaside Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh to figure out how to avert the worst of climate change.

“Humanity has a choice — cooperate or perish,” Mr Guterres told delegates, urging them to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels and speed funding to poorer countries struggling under climate impacts that have already occurred.

Despite decades of climate talks so far, countries have failed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, and their pledges to do so in the future are insufficient to keep the climate from warming to a level scientists have said would be catastrophic.

Land war in Europe, deteriorating diplomatic ties between top emitters the United States and China, rampant inflation, and tight energy supplies threaten to distract countries further away from combating climate change, Mr Guterres said, threatening to derail the transition to clean energy.

“Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising and our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible,” Mr Guterres said

“We are on a highway to climate hell
with our foot on the accelerator.”

Former US vice-president Al Gore — also speaking at the event — said global leaders have a credibility problem when it comes to climate change, criticising developed nations’ ongoing pursuit of gas resources in Africa, which he described as “fossil fuel colonialism”.

MAIN IMAGE: Rafael Henrique, Dreamstime.

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