Climate chaos

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has hit the nail on the head: ‘We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.’ During his speech at the COP27 summit in Egypt, he has apocalyptically warned that the uncontrolled rise in greenhouse gas emissions and global temperatures will make climate chaos irreversible. Cooperate or perish – that’s his simple message to humanity. But that’s easier said than done. A key reason for the sorry state of affairs is the rich countries’ reluctance to expedite the transition from fossil fuels and give adequate funds to poorer nations to tackle climate change. Underprivileged countries, mostly from the African continent where the summit is being held, have repeatedly sought compensation from rich nations for losses caused by climate-induced disasters such as floods, storms, heatwaves and wildfires.

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Amid the persistent gloom, the newly unveiled Executive Action Plan for the Early Warnings for All offers a ray of hope. The plan, prepared by the World Meteorological Organisation and its partners, calls for new targeted investments of $3.1 billion between 2023 and 2027. Its purpose is to facilitate climate adaptation and resilience by offering services related to disaster risk knowledge, forecasting and communication of early warnings anywhere on the planet. Timely alerts are expected to help underprepared nations get their act together and minimise the damage likely to be caused by extreme weather events.

The Covid-19 pandemic that ravaged the world for over two years underlined the significance of international cooperation and coordination. It finally dawned on humankind that nobody was safe until everybody was safe. The same spirit should guide collaborative efforts to deal with climate change. Guterres has asked countries worldwide to make a commitment to phasing out coal by 2040. The world’s biggest consumers of coal, China and India, need to show the way by reducing their dependence on this polluting fossil fuel. A green transition is the need of the hour, but such a process should be gradual, equitable and just. The biggest polluters must not be allowed to drag their feet on funding. After all, they are the ones who have pushed the earth to the brink.