The world urgently needs to start investing trillions of dollars in the green transition, the United Nations climate chief said on Friday, warning that finance was the decisive factor in the battle to curb global warming.
At last year's COP28 UN climate negotiations in Dubai, countries agreed to triple global renewable energy capacity this decade and "transition" away from polluting fossil fuels.
But the deal lacked important details, including on financing.
Now the world will have to come up with a clear plan to find 'torrents, not trickles, of climate finance,' UN climate chief Simon Stiell said in a speech in Baku, Azerbaijan, where this year's climate summit will be held. , COP29, in November.
"Whether it is reducing emissions or developing climate resilience, it is already absolutely obvious that finance is the decisive factor in the global climate fight: in quantity, quality and innovation," said Stiell, executive secretary of the Climate Framework. The United Nations. Convention on Climate Change.
"In fact, without much more funding, the 2023 climate achievements will quickly fade away and become more empty promises."
In a speech that moved back from a vision of success in 2050 to actions over the next two years, he said changes in the coming decades would be "comparable in scope to the industrial revolution" or the growth of the digital economy.
The world is currently a long way from meeting its key climate deal, agreed in Paris in 2015.
Under the Paris Agreement, world leaders pledged to keep the rise in Earth's average temperature "well below" 2.0 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level and preferably the much safer threshold of 1.5°. c.
The 2020s are critical to keeping the 1.5°C target in sight, and UN climate experts estimate that planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by about 43 percent to 2030.
There is progress, with a rise in clean energy technologies such as solar, wind and batteries, as well as electric vehicles.
But emissions continue to increase.
A key challenge that is likely to take center stage at this year's climate talks in Baku, as well as meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, is how to help emerging economies manage and pay for their transition to clean energy.
Many of these nations are currently mired in debt and face a host of challenges, from inflation to growing climate impacts.
Developing countries except China will face an estimated annual cost of $2.4 trillion by 2030 to meet their climate and development priorities.
Stiell urged multilateral development banks to implement "concrete actions" this year and move towards doubling or tripling their financial capacity by 2030.
Meanwhile, global warming continues: 2023 is confirmed to be the hottest year on record and experts warn that 2024 could be even hotter.
The Earth is now about 1.2°C warmer than it was in the 19th century.
This is already having an accelerating impact on people and ecosystems across the planet, from sweltering heatwaves and crop-withering droughts to devastating floods and storms.
A damning assessment of countries' decarbonization efforts so far, published last year, showed the world is heading toward catastrophic planetary warming.
Stiell admitted it would take an "Olympic effort" to get the world back on track.
A key task for countries will be to outline a new round of national climate targets for 2035 ahead of a key COP30 meeting, to be held in Brazil in 2025.
These new commitments should be strengthened to align with the 1.5°C target, covering the entire economy and all greenhouse gases, Stiell said.
"The actions we take over the next two years will determine how much climate destruction we can avoid over the next two decades, and far beyond," he added.
