US President Joe Biden will remain “determined” in the fight against climate change regardless of the outcome of the elections in the United States, promised his envoy on Tuesday at COP27, where the countries of the South are demanding funding that could become astronomical.
“The climate crisis isn’t just threatening our infrastructure, our economies or our security — it’s threatening every aspect of our daily lives,” warned US climate envoy John Kerry on the third day of the major climate change conference. the UN on the climate, which is held in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
“President Biden is more determined than ever to continue what we are doing”, regardless of the election result, and recognizes his country’s “special responsibility” towards developing nations, he said.
The American president is not present in Egypt at the same time as the other leaders, awaiting this Tuesday the result of midterm elections crucial for his political future. However, he will come to Sharm el-Sheikh on Friday.
The leaders continue to parade on Tuesday at COP27, which officially included in its agenda the question of the losses and damages suffered by the countries of the South.
2000 billion per year
“It’s only a step,” warned Tuesday at the podium the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), threatened by the rise of waters.
“We must unequivocally establish a loss and damage fund at this COP” and it will be “only a modest pledge as our members lose up to 2% of their GDP in one day from a single event climate,” he said.
These discussions are taking place against an increasingly urgent backdrop of disasters, with historic floods in Pakistan this year, famine-threatening drought in the Horn of Africa and record heat in Europe this summer.
The UN secretary-general on Monday urged leaders to step up the fight before it’s too late. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact,” thundered Antonio Guterres.
This solidarity must be translated into financial commitments, in particular for poor countries, and the question of money is the most bitterly discussed on the occasion of COP27.
Southern countries will need more than $2 trillion a year by 2030 to finance their climate action, nearly half of which will come from outside investors, according to a report commissioned by the COP presidency released on Tuesday.
A global tax for oil and gas giants?
“Rich countries should recognize that it is in their own vital interest, as well as a matter of justice, given the severe effects caused by their high emissions yesterday and today, to invest in climate action” in these countries,” said Nicholas Stern, a renowned economist who co-authored the report.
Faced with these immense needs, more and more voices are calling for a reform of the international financial system designed at the end of the Second World War, so that it can respond to the climate challenge.
“It is important to review the way the international financial system works,” pleaded Antonio Guterres, appealing to international financial institutions and the G20, which is meeting in a few days in Bali, Indonesia.
A reform according to him necessary to better help countries like Pakistan, where floods submerged a third of the territory and affected some 33 million people, causing more than 30 billion dollars of damage and economic losses. This “middle” income country is not poor enough to benefit from certain facilities in the current system.
For the time being, Gaston Browne has called for the oil and gas giants, which are making stratospheric profits this year, to cash out. “It is time for these companies to pay a global carbon tax on these profits to finance the losses and damages”, he demanded.