U.N.
Secretary General António Guterres launched a two-day, climate-themed
"Summit for the Future" on Sunday (September 22) as part of the U.N.
General Assembly, where some leaders warned of growing mistrust between nations
as climate-fueled disasters mount.
National
leaders addressed the group after adopting a "Pact for the Future"
aimed at ensuring and increasing cooperation between nations, with many calling
for urgent access to more climate finance.
"International
challenges are moving faster than our ability to solve them," Guterres
told leaders at the summit. "Crises are interacting and feeding off each
other – for example, as digital technologies spread climate disinformation,
that deepens distrust and fuels polarization."
Prime
Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados echoed Guterres' warning and urged a
"reset" in how global institutions are governed so they can better
respond to crises and serve those most in need.
"The
distress in our institutions of governance, the mistrust between the governors
and the governed, will continue to foster social alienation the world over at
the very time that we need to find as many people as possible to shape a new
world," Mottley said.
The
U.N. climate summit continues on Monday with speeches from China, India, and
the United States.
Elsewhere
during the week, U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to deliver a speech at an
event also attended by actress and climate activist Jane Fonda and World Bank
President Ajay Banga, among others. Another event hosted by the Clinton
Foundation features speeches by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and actor and
water activist Matt Damon.
The
Climate Group, which is coordinating Climate Week, counted some 900
climate-related events planned across the city this week, hosted by
multinational corporations, international non-profits, governments and
activists.
BIG AGENDA
Climate
summits and events like Climate Week, held alongside the U.N. General Assembly,
have taken on a more urgent tone in recent years as rising temperatures fuel
increasingly extreme disasters like heatwaves and storms.
Some
observers to climate negotiations regretted that the global pact adopted Sunday
morning by the General Assembly did not go further than last year's COP28
summit in Dubai in affirming a commitment to transition away from fossil fuel
use.
Countries
are showing "collective amnesia" about the need to tackle these
polluting fuels, said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at the climate think tank
E3G.
Leaders
have also been grappling with a more urgent challenge on the climate agenda.
There are just two months left until the U.N.'s COP29 climate summit in Baku,
Azerbaijan, leaving little time for agreeing on a new global finance target to
replace the annual $100 billion pledge that expires in 2025.
With
some U.N. agencies estimating the annual financing need in the trillions,
leaders are looking beyond their own budgets for ways to boost climate cash.
The
World Bank and other multilateral development banks are undergoing reform
processes this year, which could see them making more funding available or
taking on more climate-related risk.
Under
an initiative led by Barbados, France and Kenya, countries also continue to
discuss imposing new global taxes to help pay for climate finance, such as a
financial transaction tax or a shipping tax.
Commonwealth
Secretary General Patricia Scotland noted that some of the world's poorest
countries were now facing climate-fueled disasters along with an increased debt
burden.
"We have to do more to understand the fundamental unfairness of the debt crisis that most of our developing countries are going through," Scotland told Reuters. "The development banks and the World Bank have to step up to that reality."