The climate summit has started, like every year, with grandiloquent speeches, good wishes and big promises. Something like in a recital of good omens. Or as in the ritual of someone who pronounces his letter to the kings out loud in case he manages to make one of his wishes come true. It is in this spirit that the Dubai summit (COP28) began this Thursday, the most important event of the last five years to stop the advance of the climate crisis. During this opening day, all top officials of this meeting They have taken the floor to express their commitment to this event.
“This summit must conclude with the most ambitious plan to date to curb emissions. “We have no time to waste,” said Sultan Al Jaber, president of the UAE summit, during his opening speech. Al Jaber called on countries to “work together“, with “flexibility” and always in search of “consensus” to achieve the objective of limiting global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees on average. “There is no time to lose. We have to take unconventional pathswe cannot leave anything on the table,” he stated, alluding, among others, to the need to include an explicit statement on the future of fossil fuels in the final agreement.
“We must go beyond our differences and think about the legacy we will leave to future generations”
President of the Dubai Summit
The president of the Dubai summit has also called for strengthening adaptation plans in the face of the climate crisis and increasing funds to help countries in the global south cope with the losses and damages caused by climate ravages. “We must take ourselves very seriously the work ahead of us in these two weeks. The outcome of these negotiations will have to be translated into real measures that can help people in the real world. We must go beyond our differences and think about the legacy we will leave to future generations,” he added before the United Nations plenary session.
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Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations climate change department, has also called for increasing the ambition of climate action plans. “We are giving small, very slowly, when really we should be running in the application of climate policies,” he stated during his speech. Stiell has asked the diplomats and negotiators at this summit to act with “transparency” and “responsibility”. “The record of attendees at this summit is public. The world knows who is here. And they will ask us for explanations about what we do or what we don’t do,” he added in his speech this Thursday.
Teresa Riberathird vice president of the Government and minister for the ecological transition, also has emphasized the great challenge of this summit to “evaluate compliance with the Paris agreements and offer clear guidelines for the future.”