NEW YORK: Outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will host his final climate summit at the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday, with global leaders expected to discuss emissions reductions, climate financing and measures to help vulnerable countries cope with the effects of global warming.
The meeting comes as the impacts of climate change continue to intensify around the world, with heatwaves and wildfires in Europe and catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet following a glacier collapse.
Extreme weather events are expected to become more severe with an El Niño weather pattern that has tied for the strongest on record.
The world is also expected to temporarily exceed 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial levels, a threshold beyond which scientists warn that the effects of climate change could become increasingly severe.
The High-level Event on Climate Action and the Just Transition will open with remarks by Guterres, followed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Turkiye and Australia are co-hosting the COP31 climate talks in Antalya in November under an unusual arrangement. Australia will lead the negotiations, while Turkey will host the conference and seek support for voluntary climate commitments.
Guterres, who has made climate change a major issue during his tenure, which ends on December 31, criticised the fossil fuel industry on Tuesday, accusing major oil companies of treating the atmosphere as an “open sewer”.
He said five major Western oil companies had earned nearly half a trillion dollars in profits since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Guterres contrasted the figure with the $34 billion mobilised to help developing countries adapt to a warming world.
Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists described Guterres as an “extraordinary climate champion”, saying he had used his position to highlight the concerns of vulnerable countries and the need for climate justice.
Emissions, financing and electrification
The summit agenda includes discussions on reducing emissions, making economies less dependent on fossil fuels and mobilising financing for developing countries to meet their climate targets and strengthen resilience against global warming.
Electrification is also expected to feature in the discussions, including the replacement of combustion-based systems used in areas such as heating and transport with electricity.
Turkiye has set a “35×35” target to increase electricity’s share of global final energy consumption to 35 per cent by 2035. However, the target does not specify that the electricity must come from renewable sources, which are considered important for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Global renewable power capacity increased by a record amount last year, providing some evidence of progress in the transition towards cleaner energy.
However, rising energy demand from artificial intelligence data centres and air conditioning is increasing pressure on energy systems, while clean energy production is not expanding quickly enough to replace fossil fuels.
The climate policies and commitments of Turkiye and Australia are expected to receive particular attention ahead of COP31, as both countries continue to rely on fossil fuels.
“We need to come together to meet the problem head-on,” Albanese said earlier this week, referring to the scale of the climate challenge and the consequences of inaction.
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Australia’s Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is meanwhile travelling to India and Saudi Arabia for talks on strengthening Australia’s oil supplies.
Nepal’s climate concerns
Financial assistance for Nepal, where thousands of people remain missing following the recent disaster, could also be discussed at the summit.
Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal recently told Kantipur TV that financial support for his climate-vulnerable country was “not a matter of charity” but a matter of “legal and moral liability”.
Nepal contributes only a negligible amount to global greenhouse gas emissions but remains highly vulnerable to climate-related disasters.
Cleetus said the international response to Nepal would provide an indication of the effectiveness of the Loss and Damage Fund, which was established to assist countries most vulnerable to climate change but remains significantly underfunded.
