Leaders of these most polluting countries did not attend climate action summit

The organizers scheduled a United Nations (UN) summit for this Wednesday to discuss the climate change challenges facing the world. The nations remained silent because they had no new actions to take and were not allowed to speak, as stated by the organizers.

The United Nations called the only countries that touted their efforts - "first movers and doers" - responsible for just one-ninth of the world's annual carbon pollution.

The only countries that touted their efforts — “first movers and doers,” the United Nations called them — were responsible for just one-ninth of the world’s annual carbon pollution.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said Wednesday that humanity has opened the gates to hell, as he opened a special climate ambition summit with yet another plea for action. He said that horrendous heat causes horrendous effects such as distraught farmers watching floods carry away their crops, sweltering temperatures spawning diseases, and historic fires continuing to rage, causing thousands to flee in fear.

Most polluting leaders skipped climate summit

Guterres convened the summit with the idea that only world leaders who came with new concrete actions would get to address their peers on the issue. But leaders of the countries that produce the most heat-trapping gases themselves chose not to even ask.

Heads of state from China, the United States, India, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France all skipped the summit. The United States, which has put the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the decades, sent its climate envoy, John Kerry, to the summit even though President Joe Biden was in town. Then the United Nations didn't give Kerry a speaking spot. But California Gov. Gavin Newsom was given the space to speak and tout his state's efforts.

The 32 national leaders who did qualify represent only 11 percent of the world's carbon dioxide pollution. China and the United States both emit more carbon dioxide than those 32 countries combined. The European Commission's president was also permitted to speak.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who called on debt pauses and cancellations and changes in multinational development banks and the insurance industry, said, "Regrettably, I'm not sure everybody is getting what actions are needed to preserve this planet as we are in the final stages."

Mottley, a leader of poorer nations struck frequently by extreme weather, lamented that everybody was paying attention to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who was speaking at the same time at the Security Council. While she stands in support of Ukraine, she said, climate change is "a greater threat because more lives are at stake globally than they are in Ukraine."

UN warns of 2030 temperature limit

The UN has repeatedly said in reports on climate change that the world is close to breaking the temperature increase limit agreed for 2030 (1.5° C) and that this would have devastating consequences for the planet.

Also, these reports have made calls to take concrete and effective actions to reduce the amount of polluting emissions, such as reducing the use of fossil fuels or issuing policies to transform the production models of some industries.

These actions, which should be led by the most polluting countries, have not yet become evident. Leaders from 100 countries attending the summit also drew attention to the absence of the presidents of the United States and China, as well as these nations' lack of commitment to climate action.

Smaller nations can't go it alone

On Wednesday, Guterres once again pushed for an end to fossil fuel subsidies, something he said "reached an incredible $7 trillion in 2022." The secretary-general criticized "the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels."

He called on wealthy nations to fulfill their $100 billion pledges to help poorer countries deal with climate change. The United States is one of the countries that hasn't done so. The U.N. chief also pushed for countries to spend even more than they've promised and put in money to a "loss and damage" fund agreed upon last year that are sort of payments to help nations harmed by extreme weather from global warming.

Africa "can leapfrog into a fully green industrial paradigm,'' Kenyan President William Ruto said. "Yet we cannot and must not do this on our own."

To get there, Africa needs the world to change its debt and credit systems, an extra $500 billion in financial help, and a global tax, Ruto said. "What we need is fairness — a fair financial system."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his nation is adding another 500 million Euros in climate aid, urging other industrial nations to do the same.

Experts and United Nations reports say the world needs to reduce emissions by 43 percent in the next seven years to reach the goal set by the 2015 Paris agreement. That's more than 20 billion metric tons of carbon pollution.

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