https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/07/climate/climate-change-crisis-cop27.html – Nov 7, 2022

‘A Reason to Act Faster’: World Leaders Meet on Climate Amid Other Crises

SHARM EL SHEIKH — World leaders gathered Monday to wrestle with the crisis of climate change, amid a sea of other pressing challenges that threaten to set back already inadequate steps to pivot the global economy away from fossil fuels.

Casting an ominous shadow over these talks is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, itself financed by the sale of Russian gas. The conflict has unsettled the global energy market, spurred inflation and led some to call for more oil and gas drilling. Meanwhile, poor countries suffering from climate effects are increasingly frustrated with wealthy countries whose emissions are driving global warming. And relations between the two biggest polluters, the United States and China, have fallen to a new low.

“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,” the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, told the gathering of more than 100 princes, presidents, and prime ministers Monday at the summit, the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations climate convention, known as COP27.

Scattered amid the sprawling conference center were several pavilions dedicated to the promotion of oil and gas. Saudi Arabia had paid for an exceptionally large space to describe itself as an energy hub. OPEC had a space showing off what it called its international development fund. Mauritania boasted of its natural gas reserves.

As the countries of Europe scramble to get off Russian natural gas, rising gas prices are whetting the appetites for new gas production elsewhere, from the North Sea to the Gulf of Mexico to the West African coast. Prince bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates said flatly that his country would continue to produce gas so long as there was a market for it. He called his country a “responsible” gas producer.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain, who reversed his earlier decision to skip the summit, told delegates that the Russian invasion of Ukraine should prompt developed countries to invest more heavily in renewable energy.

“Putin’s abhorrent war in Ukraine, and rising energy prices across the world are not a reason to go slow on climate change,” Mr. Sunak said. “They are a reason to act faster.”

Mr. Guterres underscored that climate change was not a separate issue that could be deferred, but is linked with the crises of war, unrest and hunger. “It is the central challenge of our century,” he said. “It is unacceptable, outrageous and self-defeating to put it on the back burner. Indeed, many of today’s conflicts are linked with growing climate chaos.”

Mr. Guterres urged the United States and China to resume discussions on ways to cooperate on climate action, saying that the nations had “a particular responsibility to join efforts.”

There is no immediate sign of thaw. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, is not attending the meeting. Mr. Xi’s single-minded focus on shoring up his country’s sagging economy — and his increasingly closer relationship to Russia’s Vladimir Putin — has raised doubts about his commitment to greening the Chinese economy, while Tuesday’s midterm elections in the United States have brought new uncertainties about the future direction of American climate policy.

John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy, is trying to reboot discussions at the conference with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, but so far, the two have no scheduled meetings. President Biden is scheduled to appear at the meeting on Friday, after other world leaders have departed.

Of the 110 national leaders who appeared at the global event on Monday, seven were women. One of them, Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, gave an impassioned call for reform of the international banking system, saying it trapped formerly colonized countries into deepening debt, as they try to cope with climate hazards.

Leah Namugerwa, an 18-year-old climate activist from Uganda, told the dignitaries, most of whom were middle-aged or older, to move faster. “Politicians, when you stand up to talk, my generation asks that you speak like we are in an emergency,” she said.