Nigeria’s floods should drive climate action –UK representative

The President of the 26th Conference of Parties, which took place in Glasgow, the United Kingdom and British official to the 27th Conference of Parties, Alok Sharma, has called for more concrete actions in fighting climate change.

He made these remarks on Sunday, November 6, 2022 in Sharm el-Shiekh, Egypt as COP27 began.

In his opening speech, Sharma spoke of the need to keep to the 1.5 degree Celsius reach as enunciated in the Paris Agreement. He also noted the dangers of inaction, which could defer climate catastrophe.

He said, “Friends, we are not currently on a pathway that keeps 1.5 degree Celsius in reach. And whilst I do understand that leaders around the world have faced competing priorities this year, we must be clear as challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic, and can only defer climate catastrophe.”

Speaking about the need for drastic actions, Sharma spoke of the impacts of climate change such as the recent flooding experienced in Nigeria and Pakistan. “We must find the ability to focus on more than one thing at once. How many more wake-up calls do world leaders actually need? A third of Pakistan under water. The worst flooding in Nigeria in a decade. This year, the worst drought in 500 years in Europe, in a thousand years in the United States, and the worst on record in China,” he said.

The COP26 President expressed hope that world leaders during the conference would explain what their countries had achieved within the past year and would highlight how they intend to go further. He promised that the United Kingdom would reach ambitious outcomes across the agenda of the climate conference which are on mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs and COP27 President, Sameh Shoukry, has called on countries to use the opportunity that the climate conference provides to make multilateralism work in the fight against climate change.

Shoukry said, “We’re gathering this year at a time when global climate action is at a watershed moment. Multilateralism is being challenged by geopolitics, spiraling prices, and growing financial crises, while several countries battered by the pandemic have barely recovered, and severe and depleting climate change-induced disasters are becoming more frequent.

“COP27 creates a unique opportunity in 2022 for the world to unite, to make multilateralism work by restoring trust and coming together at the highest levels to increase our ambition and action in fighting climate change. COP27 must be remembered as the ‘Implementation COP’ – the one where we restore the grand bargain that is at the centre of the Paris Agreement.”