Temperature Reduction
By:- Sheikh Alkinky Sanyang, Baku, Azerbaijan
The Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change has reiterated that UNFCCC process is the only place to address the rampant climate crisis, and to credibly hold each other to account to act on it.
Because without it, humanity would be headed towards five degrees of global warming. Simon Stiell delivered this revelation during the official opening ceremony of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) currently taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Stiell revealed that the world cannot afford to continue up-ending lives and livelihoods in every nation, and therefore asked whether we want our grocery and energy bills to go up, or our countries to become economically uncompetitive, or increase further global instability costing precious life?
He vehemently confirmed that this crisis is affecting and will to affect every single individual in the world one way or another, and what is more frustrating is no single Conference Of Parties (COP) can deliver the full transformation that every nation needs or Parties need to agree a way out of this mess. “This is why we’re here in Baku. We must agree a new global climate finance goal”. He pointed out.
Furthermore, the UN Climate Change boss revealed that if at least two thirds of the world’s nations cannot afford to cut emissions quickly, then every nation will pay a brutal price, and if nations can’t build resilience into supply chains, the entire global economy will be brought to its knees, as no one country is immune.
The UN Climate Change boss however noted that it’s not enough to just agree on a goal, but we must work harder to reform the global financial system and give countries the fiscal space they desperately needed. He said the Baku gathering must create international carbon markets by finalizing Article 6.
“We mustn’t let 1.5 slip out of reach. And even as temperatures rise, the implementation of our agreements must claw them back. Clean energy and infrastructure investment will reach two trillion dollars in 2024. Almost twice that of fossil fuels. The shift to clean-energy and climate-resilience will not be stopped and we must accelerate this and make sure its huge benefits are shared by all countries and all people.”UN Simon Stiell posited
The UNFCCC will launch a Climate Plan Campaign to support countries in creating and communicating to mobilize action from all stakeholders and align with the efforts of the UN Secretary-General and the incoming Brazilian COP Presidency. In parallel, he said UNFCCC will re-start Climate Weeks from 2025, aligning them more closely with our process and the outcomes it must deliver. He appealed to parties to show determination and ingenuity during this COP29 by encouraging parties to push for agreement right from the start.
United Nations climate change conferences have grown exponentially in size over the past two decades—from small working sessions into the largest annual conferences currently held under the auspices of the United Nations—and are now among the largest international meetings in the world. The intergovernmental negotiations have likewise become increasingly complex and involve an ever-increasing number of officials and technicians from governments all over the world, at all levels, as well as huge numbers of representatives from civil society and the global news media.
These conferences are the foremost global fora for multilateral discussion on climate change matters, and have an incredibly busy schedule. The conferences, which rotate annually among the five United Nations regional groups, serve as the formal meetings of the Conference of the Parties (COP), the Conference of Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol(CMP) and the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement.
COPs review the implementation of the UNFCCC Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, respectively; and to adopt decisions to further develop and implement these three instruments.
The Gambian delegation to COP29 was led by the Honorable Minister of Environment, Climate Change and natural resources Rohey John Manjang, Gambia`s permanetRepresentative to the UN in New York H.E Lamin Dibba and H.E Pa Musa Jobarteh, Gambia`s Ambassador to Belgium and the European Union.