'A Reason to Act Faster': World Leaders Meet on Climate Amid Other Crises
SHARM EL SHEIKH — World leaders gathered Monday to wrestle with the crisis of climate change, amid a sea of other pressing challenges that threaten to set back already inadequate steps to pivot the global economy away from fossil fuels.
Casting an ominous shadow over these talks is Russia's invasion of Ukraine, itself financed by the sale of Russian gas. The conflict has unsettled the global energy market, spurred inflation and led some to call for more oil and gas drilling. Meanwhile, poor countries suffering from climate effects are increasingly frustrated with wealthy countries whose emissions are driving global warming. And relations between the two biggest polluters, the United States and China, have fallen to a new low.
"We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator," the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, told the gathering of more than 100 princes, presidents, and prime ministers Monday at the summit, the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations climate convention, known as COP27.
Scattered amid the sprawling conference center were several pavilions dedicated to the promotion of oil and gas. Saudi Arabia had paid for an exceptionally large space to describe itself as an energy hub. OPEC had a space showing off what it called its international development fund. Mauritania boasted of its natural gas reserves…
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