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The world is in Glasgow – and the good of the planet is high on the news agenda. At the start of the climate summit, the tips from all over the world do not save with big words.
Glasgow – There is nothing less on the agenda than saving the planet. If you listen to the powerful of the world who gathered in Glasgow on this gray Monday, it almost sounds as if climate protection is consistently at the top of the priority list of governments around the world.
“COP26 cannot and must not be the end of the story,” said host Boris Johnson at the opening ceremony of the climate summit on Monday. The meeting must defuse “this bomb” and become “the beginning of the end” of destructive climate change.
Starting shot for a decade of ambition
“Glasgow must be the starting shot for a decade of ambition and determination,” said US President Joe Biden. “With every day that we wait, the cost of inaction increases.” The outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has probably come for her last appearance on the big world stage, spoke of a “comprehensive transformation” of our life, work and economy. So much for the big words.
Those in power leave the painful details of how these goals are to be achieved quickly enough to their negotiators. And the signs under which the discussions in Glasgow begin could be better. At their G20 summit at the weekend, the leading economic nations failed to agree on specific dates for phasing out coal or carbon dioxide neutrality, thereby sending a strong signal from the biggest polluters to Glasgow. Speaking of polluters: The world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the People’s Republic of China, initially remained silent in Glasgow. President Xi Jinping decided not to speak and instead sent some written lines.
Concrete measures are urgently needed
The coming weeks will show whether the “Bla, Bla, Bla”, coined by the world’s most prominent climate activist Greta Thunberg and even quoted by Boris Johnson on Monday, will remain. Concrete action is urgently needed for Glasgow to deliver what Paris promised in its historically acclaimed deal. The world is “catastrophically far” from the decisive goal of the Paris World Climate Agreement – limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, Thunberg wrote in an open appeal that reached a million signatures in a very short time. Together with other activists, she called on state leaders from all over the world to finally respond decisively and with drastic measures.
“We are digging our own grave,” warned UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. At the start of the ceremony, he warned that all the already promised efforts to protect the climate were insufficient, back and forth, to avert a catastrophe, framed by Scottish bagpipe music and appeals from children from all over the world. “It’s time to say: Enough,” said Guterres. “Enough brutal attacks on biodiversity. Enough carbon self-destruction. Enough of the fact that nature is treated like a toilet. ”The President of the Seychelles, Wavel Ramkalawan, told how people in his home country, considered paradise by many, get scared when it comes to rising sea levels. “We are already panting for survival,” says Ramkalawan.
$ 100 billion promise
The large imbalance between rich industrialized countries and poorer countries, which are already suffering from the consequences of climate change, threatens to overshadow the conference. The $ 100 billion promise, which is to flow annually to developing countries to fight the climate crisis, will only be achieved three years later than promised. The gap between rich and poor, between those responsible and those most affected, is obvious in Glasgow from the very beginning. When a Kenyan climate activist called on the world at the end of the opening ceremony to “open hearts and hear their story”, the first were already leaving the hall. When the President of Mauritania speaks, all eyes are on the following Joe Biden.
This sums up his urgent appeal, for which the US President takes three to four times as much time as the three minutes actually planned, in one great hope. “May God Save The Planet”, says the devout Catholic at the end of his speech. But initially this task rests on the shoulders of hundreds of negotiators in Glasgow. dpa
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