COP27 World Leaders Summit in Egypt
UN chief Antonio Guterres warned world leaders at a climate summit in Egypt that humanity faces a stark choice between working together or "collective suicide" in the battle against global warming.
Nearly 100 heads of state and government are meeting in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, facing calls to deepen emissions cuts and financially back developing countries already devastated by the effects of rising temperatures.
"Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish," Guterres told the UN COP27 summit.
"It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact," Guterres said, urging the world to ramp up the transition to renewable energy and for richer polluting nations to come to the aid of poorer countries least responsible for heat-trapping emissions.
Nations worldwide are coping with increasingly intense natural disasters that have taken thousands of lives this year alone and cost billions of dollars.
"We have seen one catastrophe after another," said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. "As soon as we tackle one catastrophe, another one arises -- wave after wave of suffering and loss.
"Is it not high time to put an end to all this suffering?"
But a multitude of other crises, from Russia's war in Ukraine to soaring inflation and the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic, has raised concerns that climate change will drop down the priority list of governments.
