UN Secretary General António Guterres issued an urgent appeal on Monday to the CO28 World Climate Conference in Dubai to “end the fossil fuel age.”
The time had now come for maximum ambition and maximum flexibility, Guterres told a press conference in Dubai. Ministers and lead negotiators had to leave behind them arbitrary red lines, deadlocked positions and blockades, he said.
“I have come back to COP28, because we are on the brink of climate disaster, and this conference must mark a turning point,” Guterres said on X, formerly Twitter.
“I am here to renew my urgent appeal to leaders: Recommit to the 1.5 °C warming limit,” he said.
Speaking hours before the conference was due to end early on Tuesday, UN climate head Simon Stiell called for greater readiness to compromise and greater ambition in combating global warming. He urged negotiators to reject a policy of small steps.
Each step back from the highest ambition would cost countless millions of lives, he said. And this was happening now, not just in the next political or economic cycle.
Negotiators at the conference attended by some 97,000 participants spent the weekend wrangling over the final text, amid hopes that a draft would be released during Monday.
The most controversial point turns on a commitment to phase out the use of fossil fuels, with opposition from Saudi Arabia, China, Iraq, Russia and others.
Previous COP conferences have tended to run over the deadline.
Source: GNA
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