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“Climate carnage”: UN demands funding surge to save millions of lives
Secretary-general warns effects of global heating are outstripping the ability to adapt to them
A dramatic increase in funding for climate adaptation is needed to save millions of lives from “climate carnage”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said.
Climate adaptation includes preparing defences against rising floods, shelters against intensifying cyclones and emergency plans to protect people during worsening heatwaves and droughts. Guterres said only a small fraction of the required finance was given by rich nations to protect vulnerable people.
A report from UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said the worsening impacts of the climate crisis would outstrip the ability to provide protection without far more funding for adaptation, leading to “knockout blows” to generations to come.
The report found that 80% of countries had started adaptation plans, but that just a third had quantified targets with deadlines.
Climate action takes three key forms: cutting emissions to limit the impacts, adapting to the effects that cannot be avoided, and funding rebuilding in communities struck by impacts that cannot be adapted to.
A series of reports last week found that action to cut global carbon emissions to date was “woefully inadequate”, while Guterres said on Thursday that rebuilding funds — known as “loss and damage” in UN talks — would be a critical issue at the Cop27 climate summit.
The growing impact of the climate crisis has been clear in 2022, including catastrophic floods in Pakistan and searing heatwaves from the US to China. The influence of global heating in supercharging many extreme weather events is now strong, even with only a 1.1o C temperature rise to date, and some major effects would not have occurred without humanity’s interference with the climate.
As well as more funding, Guterres said countries needed much better data on climate risks and that early warning systems for extreme weather must be in place everywhere in the world within five years. “The world must step up and protect people and communities from the immediate and ever-growing risks of the climate emergency.”
He added: “We must also recognise that, in many places, it is too late for adaptation. Cop27 must provide a clear and time-bound roadmap on closing the finance gap for addressing loss and damage. This will be a central litmus test for success at Cop27.”
Designing adaptation action must involve indigenous and local communities, said Annamária Lehoczky of the conservation body Fauna & Flora International. “Only then is it possible to be effective, sustainable and just. It is these communities who have the specialist, on-the-ground knowledge of their needs and are best able to develop transformative solutions, which also address the underlying drivers of poverty, inequality, climate change and the degradation of nature.”
Adapted from: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/03/future-generations-face-climate-carnage- -without-surge-in-funding-un
ACCORDING TO the text, how much of the required finance was given by the rich nations to protect vulnerable people?
