The United Nations has urged countries to initiate quick action on global warming and phase out fossil fuels amid intense scrutiny of oil-rich hosts, the United Arab Emirates, News About Nigeria reports.
This was discussed on Thursday at the United Nations climate conference opening in Dubai.
The two-week-long climate talks come at a pivotal moment, with emissions still rising, and the 2023 edition is likely to be the hottest in human history.
The UN and hosts, the United Arab Emirates, say the talks, known as COP28, will be the most important since Paris in 2015 when nations agreed to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius since the preindustrial era, and preferably to a safer limit of 1.5C.
Scientists had earlier said that the world is not on track to achieve these targets, and nations must make faster and deeper cuts to emissions to prevent the most disastrous impacts of climate change.
On the eve of the summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the conference’s aim should be a complete “phaseout” of fossil fuels within a reasonable time framework.
He was of the opinion that the central focus will be a stocktake of the world’s limited progress on curbing global warming, which requires an official response at the talks.
According to the UN Climate Chief, Simon Chief, the world is taking small steps where greater leaps are required to achieve the aspired aims of the summit.
On Thursday, all nations are expected to formally approve the launch of a “loss and damage” fund to compensate climate-vulnerable countries after a year of hard-fought negotiations over how it would work.
At the summit, rich nations were urged to contribute so that the vacancy would be filled and money could start flowing.
