Nations must put climate action at top of agendas says UNFCCC head as storm wrecks his grandma's house

New Delhi, Jul 17 (PTI) With climate change-intensified Hurricane Beryl destroying his grandmother's house on a Caribbean island, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Steill on Wednesday called on every country to put climate action at the top of their cabinet agendas.
     Steill, who is visiting the island of Carriacou in his homeland of Grenada in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, said the G20 group of countries -- responsible for 80 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions -- must lead the way with game-changing new national climate plans due early next year.
     Hurricane Beryl, the earliest category five storm on record in the Atlantic, made landfall on July 1 before ripping through the Cayman Islands, Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and reaching Texas last week.
     Steill said that initial reports indicate 98 per cent of homes and buildings in Carriacou have been either destroyed or severely damaged.
     "My community and I are experiencing the devastation that has become all too familiar to hundreds of millions of people around the world," he said in a video message, appearing disappointed and frustrated.
     He noted that storms, floods, fires and droughts have never been so destructive or so frequent.
     "Just in the past month, we've seen heatwaves with four-figure death tolls in India. Over a thousand pilgrims died on their Haj to Mecca this year.  Two years ago, one-third of Pakistan was under water, over a thousand people lost their lives, millions were displaced and 3.5 million children were out of school," Steill said.
     Citing a recent report by Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Steill said climate impacts could cost the global economy around USD 38 trillion a year by 2050.
     Climate impacts have decreased global food production and increased food prices and other living costs. If the governments do not step up, every economy and all eight billion people will face this blunt force trauma continuously, Steill warned.
     He called on all governments to "supercharge" efforts to prevent climate disasters.
     "This means all countries must put climate action back at the top of cabinet agendas and slash fossil fuel pollution now, halving it this decade, as science demands.    
     "The G20 group of countries -- responsible for 80 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions --  must lead the way with game-changing new national climate plans – due early next year – which deliver on the promise every country made last year to transition away from all fossil fuels," he said. 
     The countries need stronger adaptation plans, the head of the UN’s climate change body emphasized, saying climate action is an investment, not a cost.
     He said the colossal climate costs have reached the level of severe national security threats in every country and have pushed the governments into endless debt cycles. They are borrowing to rebuild, only to face another climate-inflicted disaster, diverting scarce resources from education, health and development, he said.
     Steill stressed that delivering climate finance, funding loss and damage, and investing massively in building resilience, particularly for the most vulnerable, is critical.
     Climate finance will be at the center of the UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the world will reach the deadline to agree on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) — the new amount developed nations must mobilize every year starting in 2025 to support climate action in developing countries.
     Seen standing in the ruins of a building, Steill said he was in the living room of his neighbour's house.
     "My own grandmother's house down the street has been totally destroyed," he said, adding that what the climate crisis did to "my grandmother's house must not become humanity's new normal".
     According to the European Union's (EU) climate agency, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), June 2024 was the warmest on record. It also marked the 12th consecutive month of global temperatures reaching or breaking the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold. However, a permanent breach of the 1.5-degree Celsius limit specified in the Paris Agreement refers to long-term warming over a 20 or 30-year period.
     Several countries experienced record-breaking heat and devastating floods and storms in June.
     According to an analysis by Climate Central, an independent group of scientists and communicators based in the United States, more than 60 per cent of the world population faced extreme heat that was made at least three times more likely by climate change during June 16-24.
     Earth's global surface temperature has already increased by around 1.2 degrees Celsius compared to the average in 1850-1900 due to the rapidly increasing concentration of greenhouse gases -- primarily carbon dioxide and methane -- in the atmosphere. This warming is considered to be the reason behind record droughts, wildfires and floods worldwide.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)