World in crisis a grim backdrop for U.N. climate talks

The U.N.'s top climate official appealed to countries both to engage constructively in the negotiations and take the necessary action back home

Envoys from around the globe gathered on November 6 in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for talks on tackling climate change amid a multitude of competing crises, including the war in Ukraine, high inflation, food shortages and an energy crunch.

Negotiators spent a frantic two days ahead of the meeting discussing whether to formally consider the issue of loss and damage, or reparations, to vulnerable nations suffering from climate change. The issue, which has weighed on the talks for years, was agreed just hours before the meeting officially opened.

In an opening speech, the head of the U.N.'s panel of climate scientist highlighted the urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of global warming.

"This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to save our planet and our livelihoods," said Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The outgoing chair of the talks, British official Alok Sharma, said countries had made considerable progress at their last meeting in Glasgow, including on setting more ambitious targets for cutting emissions, finalising the rules of the 2015 Paris agreement and pledging to begin phasing out the use of coal — the most heavily polluting fossil fuel.

“We kept 1.5 degrees [2.7 Fahrenheit] alive,” he said, referring to the most ambitious goal of the Paris pact, to keep temperature increase since pre-industrial times under that threshold.

Yet now those efforts were being “buffeted by global headwinds,” he warned.