Belem (Brazil), Nov 17 (PTI) Urging parties to work on social justice and climate action simultaneously, UN General Assembly’s 80th Session President Annalena Baerbock on Monday stressed on the importance of renewable energy and termed it as unstoppable.
During her speech at the high-level segment in the ongoing UN COP30 Climate Summit here, Baerbock called upon all to work collectively with trust on each other for faster and effective goals in the climate action works.
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, however, expressed displeasure over the pace of the ongoing negotiations and their outcome compared to the change in the environment and “real economy”.
“Social justice and climate action are two sides of the same coin. We must work simultaneously for these two,” Baerbock said.
The parties could force stronger public-private-partnership in this direction, and the UN body can expand concessional finances for the purpose, she added.
“The Paris Agreement mentioned renewable energy just once. You need a looking glass to find it. Now, renewable energy is the fastest growing installation. In recent times, 90 per cent of the new installations were renewables,” Baerbock said.
It has been 10 years of celebrations of the Paris Agreement and renewable has become an unstoppable segment, she added.
The UN General Assembly president further said that the global platform’s job is to ensure that the fruits of renewable energy reach everyone.
She, however, warned that the climate crisis has become unrelenting and very little has been achieved in global diplomacy since the Paris Agreement came into force.
“It is not the moment of resignation, but a moment of action. The COP journey has never been easy or linear. A long time has passed since the Paris Agreement, but it has been a very short time for international diplomacy,” Baerbock said.
“By focusing on our strongest and greatest friends, trust and regional cooperation are the new form of my development. The collective power is stronger than ever. The good news is those who are hoping in the right direction, they are simply unstoppable,” she asserted.
Negotiators from more than 190 countries have gathered here for the annual Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The COP30 summit is taking place in the Brazilian city of Belem in the Amazon region from November 10 to 21.
Stiell in his statement cautioned about what is at stake and said that climate disasters wreck millions of lives and hammer every economy, thereby pushing up prices for food and other basic needs.
“We absolutely cannot afford to waste time on tactical delays or stone-walling. The time for performative diplomacy has now passed. Now’s the time to roll-up our sleeves, come together and get the job done,” he added.
Stiell said that there is a huge amount of work ahead for ministers and negotiators at the COP30 summit, and he urged everyone to get to the hardest issues fast as when these issues get pushed deep into extra time, everybody loses.
“The pace of change in the real economy has not been matched by the pace of progress in these negotiating rooms. The spirit is there, but the speed is not. We needed an acceleration in the Amazon and that applies equally to how we all go about our collective work here,” he added.
Stiell opined that as per a widespread conviction, the Paris Agreement is humanity’s only way to survive this global climate crisis and to spread the vast benefits of climate action to all nations.
“We are all aware of the headwinds. But I also sense a deep awareness of what’s at stake and the need to show climate cooperation standing firm in a fractured world,” he added.
Stiell, however, said that there is a real determination to build on the major progress of recent COPs and once again show that climate cooperation is working to deliver real progress, though needs to work faster and fairer.
“In week one, we have also seen some major steps forward in the Action Agenda. In seven days, nations have mustered a trillion-dollar charge into clean energy and grids, rallied around a global plan to quadruple sustainable fuels, unlocked new waves of green industry, and started preparing a pipeline for new adaptation investment,” he added.
All the parties reflect an irrefutable fact driven by this process that a new economy is rising faster than forecasts, the UN Climate Change executive secretary commented.
“The good news is last year alone, more than 2.2 trillion dollars flowed into renewable energy. That is more than the GDP of over 180 countries.
“This real-world progress is not a nice-to-have. It is mission-critical. In this new era, much will depend on bringing our process closer to the real economy, to speed up implementation and spread its vast benefits to billions more people,” he added.
The 2015 Paris Agreement aims at substantially reducing global greenhouse gas emissions to hold global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (with a baseline 1850-1900).
The world has already heated up by 1.3 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era, largely due to burning fossil fuels.
The UN Emissions Gap report published earlier in the month said that under the current policies, the world is on track for 2.8 degrees of warming by 2100. PTI TR GSP GSP
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