“The world we know is over” without urgent climate action, leaders say at Cop31 | Cop31

The failure to deliver a massive response to the climate crisis means “the world as we know is over”, the president of the Marshall Islands warned, as dozens of leaders gathered in Turkey for the Cop31 climate summit.

Hilda Heine, one of the few Pacific island leaders to deliver an impassioned speech at Cop31 on Wednesday, told other heads of state that exceeding the 1.5C temperature target in Paris would mean waves eating away at their coasts and floods that would destroy towns, schools and hospitals.

She described seeing bright, lush corals beneath the waters of her home island in July, which had been bleached white a few months later.

“It’s time to wake up,” Heine said. “Our response to the threat of overshoot must be overwhelming, otherwise the world we know is over. »

Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, also denounced governments which had “not done enough” to reduce emissions since the Paris agreement.

“The UN tells us that, even if all the promises are kept, we are heading towards 2.6 degrees,” she said. “With current policies, we will end up at 2.8 degrees.

“Let’s be clear: overshooting is not a new objective. It is a debt, a debt of warmth, borrowed for the future of our children. And it must be repaid.”

The opening of the summit of international leaders on the third day of Cop31 saw impassioned speeches interspersed with vigorous displays of Turkish music and dance.

António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, blamed a deceptive fossil fuel industry and countries that “continue to increase fossil fuel production while claiming to commit to 1.5°C”. His speech – a salvo aimed at energizing the negotiations – was one of the last that Guterres, a staunch climate advocate, will deliver as secretary-general before resigning next month.

“We need extraordinary acceleration,” Guterres said. “Our planet is warming up. The clock is winding down. It’s time to prepare or bake.”

“Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs,” he added. “And it won’t happen on its own. Dinosaurs didn’t have a lobby, unlike fossil fuels.”

Guterres said oil and gas companies had distorted science and delayed action on the climate crisis, and called for a windfall tax on the windfall profits they made from the war in Iran. “It’s time to kick the habit and end dependence on fossil fuels,” he said to applause. “It’s time for governments to tax these windfall profits and use them to help vulnerable countries recover. Polluters must pay.”

Unusually, Turkey is co-hosting the Cop with Australia, with the leaders of the two countries, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Anthony Albanese respectively, each welcoming the partnership.

Erdoğan said he wanted Cop31 to be remembered as a turning point in the climate crisis and called on countries to act rather than just make promises. “Every minute we fail to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, the risks and costs we face continue to grow,” the Turkish president said. However, on Monday, far from the conference room, Erdoğan celebrated the discovery of two new oil fields with an estimated in situ potential of 135 million barrels.

In his speech to world leaders, Heine said every new oil well drilled and every piece of coal extracted posed a threat to his country’s future. Without naming any individual oil or gas producers, she added: “The discovery of new fossil fuel resources is not something to celebrate but something to fear. »

Albanese said the conference was a “historic moment” for Australia. The country is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and liquefied gas. Albanese said governments had a “solemn responsibility” to act on the climate crisis, but he was criticized for failing to mention fossil fuels in his speech.

The gathering of leaders was relatively threadbare. While 91 national leaders were present, according to the UN, major figures such as Donald Trump of the United States and Xi Jinping of China were absent. Perhaps tellingly, other leaders who declined to attend, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, are instead traveling to Ireland for an AI conference.

Nearly every country at Cop31 is lagging behind in reducing emissions, with insufficient funding for countries most vulnerable to extreme heat, floods, fires and other climate-driven calamities.

Although the world exceeds the 1.5°C limit and enters the teeth of one of the strongest El Niño events in history, there is little sign that the negotiations will lead to further progress in phasing out the fossil fuels that heat the planet.

“I sense a sense of panic here, from the scientific community,” said Bill Hare, a climate scientist and chief executive of Climate Analytics, who described tense conversations with rainforest and cryosphere scientists. “The mood is gradually getting darker among scientists. In fact, people are talking about the feeling that things have gone backwards.”

Small island nations face an existential threat from rising sea levels and are among the countries most exposed to disasters when global warming exceeds 1.5°C. The United Nations Environment Program has found that such an overshoot is now inevitable and warned that its effects on icy regions would be so catastrophic that they should be kept as brief and small as possible.

Other world leaders have stressed the urgency of this period of multiple crises and the need for multilateralism to finally bear fruit. Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, President of North Macedonia, said: “We are the first generation to fully understand the consequences of our choices – and perhaps the last to have time to change course. Future generations will live with the consequences of our decisions.”

Nataša Pirc Musar, President of Slovenia, said: “If we cannot agree that human dignity and respect for nature must be at the heart of our decisions, then, frankly, what is left to unite us?