Yesterday, António Guterres hosted the UN Climate Ambition Summit. The UN Secretary-General presented himself as a bouncer. Initially, more than 100 heads of state and non-state actors wanted to appear at the summit. But Guterres only allowed just under 30 “first movers and doers” to speak. Important players such as the USA and China had to stay outside. In doing so, the UN Secretary-General sends a clear signal that they must do more to tackle the climate crisis. We have summarized the new pledges and proposals of the “first movers and doers” among countries. And we also describe how the UN Secretary-General has verbally radicalized himself under the impact of the climate crisis – and how he uses his anger strategically.
The UN SDG Summit on Sustainable Development Goals was held earlier this week. Here, too, there is too little progress. Lisa Kuner researched how poverty, hunger, corruption and violence are hindering climate efforts in Honduras. And Michael Kühn of the German aid organization Welthungerhilfe explains why climate change ravages failed states all the more fiercely and how humanitarian aid could respond.
On Thursday and Friday, the climate issue will continue on the fringes of the UN General Assembly. As always, we will take a close look and present you with key results and observations in a special edition on Friday.
With 70 days to go before COP28, it’s becoming clear what ideas and strategies countries advocating for more climate action intend to present. At the “Climate Ambition Summit“, part of the UN General Assembly UNGA78 convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the main points are emerging. Progressive countries want to:
Among the tightly scheduled statements by the 34 heads of state and government, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz conveyed the most optimism. He declared that 2023 could become a “decisive moment” for international climate action. There are reasons for hope because “words are turning into actions”. Germany fulfilled its promised climate financing of six billion euros per year by 2022, ahead of the 2025 target. The coal phase-out by 2038 is legally established, the G20 has approved tripling renewable energies and Scholz’s “Climate Club” is willing to admit more than the current 27 members.
This confidence wasn’t shared by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his opening remarks. On the contrary, Guterres stated, “Humanity has opened the gates to hell.” However, he emphasized that the future is not predetermined; it will be shaped by the pioneers he invited to the summit. With this “Ambition Summit”, Guterres is attempting to enlarge the climate action group within the UN and strengthen its influence.
Prior to the event, there was intense behind-the-scenes wrangling. Guterres made it clear that he would only allow government leaders to speak if they presented new and far-reaching climate action proposals. From over 100 applications for the three-minute speaking slots, his team, after lengthy internal discussions, compiled a list of 34 states and seven non-state actors at the last minute.
It was also noteworthy who was not on the list: neither major polluters like the USA, China, Russia, Indonesia, Japan nor traditional pioneering countries like the UK, Norway and Sweden. There was much discussion about the speakers’ list, according to the UN.
Guterres reiterated his calls for a global “solidarity pact” and an “acceleration agenda” for global climate action. Industrialized countries should become climate-neutral by 2040 and provide more funding to help poorer countries with the necessary transition. This includes measures such as a coal phase-out by 2030 in industrialized countries, an end to fossil fuel subsidies and no new gas and oil projects.
The plans of the 34 heads of state, leaders of international organizations, members of civil society and business leaders can be categorized into different groups:
Despite all the agreement, it’s clear that the front of pioneers is not united. A statement from the “High Ambition Coalition” (HAC), which called for a rapid exit from fossil fuels, a rapid expansion of renewables and “solidarity” in mobilizing “trillions” for climate financing the day before, received support from only 17 government leaders, including those from France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Palau and Kenya. Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not sign the document, even though Germany has traditionally been a significant supporter of the HAC. The government had not provided an explanation for this by the time of Table.Media’s editorial deadline on Wednesday night.
The UN chief’s invitation was clear: At his Climate Ambition Summit in New York on September 20, 2023, he expected governments, businesses, the financial world, cities and civil society to take “new, tangible, and credible climate action to accelerate the pace of change.” This “price of admission is non-negotiable,” António Guterres said when he announced the summit.
It will be a “no-nonsense summit. Without exceptions. Without compromises.” There will be “no room for back-sliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters or repackaging of announcements of previous years.”
Undiplomatic words for the world’s highest diplomat. The UN Secretary-General’s clear statements follow a consistent development. Since António Guterres took office in 2017, his stance and speech on the climate crisis have significantly radicalized. This is the consequence of a lack of progress in climate diplomacy coupled with an escalating climate crisis. But it is also a clear strategy by the UN chief to ensure visibility and influence for his beleaguered organization.
At the beginning of his term, the former Portuguese prime minister tended to focus on the issue of “peace.” At COP23 in Germany, he urged delegates to be “more ambitious” but also saw “encouraging examples of progress.” And to the negotiators, he called out, the world is “counting on your foresight and wisdom!”
A year later, at COP24 in Katowice, Poland, Guterres refocused on warnings and cautions. Climate change was “the single most important issue,” and it was difficult to understand why so little progress was being made. Climate action is not only the right thing to do, but also “makes social and economic sense,” Guterres said in his address to the plenary. After all, he said, there is “significant global momentum for climate action.”
Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation (ECF), told Table.Media that Guterres “has been a true climate leader since COP24 in Katowice, a true diplomatic artist, working to keep the climate at the top of the international agenda.” That is “no easy task,” especially since the “G20 still hasn’t acted to transition away from fossil fuels. More than ever, we need his strong, realistic words.”At the following COP25 in Madrid in 2019, Guterres already sounded quite different: The world was on the verge of sleepwalking “past the point of no return” and must end the “war against nature.” For the first time in his official speech, he echoed demands from the climate change movement – which dominated the 2019 Madrid climate summit with Greta Thunberg. Guterres demanded “a path where more fossil fuels remain where they should be – in the ground.” and ending our “addiction to coal.” Instead of small steps, he called for “a transformation” and “a rapid and deep change” in they way we live.
What had happened? In 2018, the IPCC’s “1.5 degrees special report” made clear how crucial quick emission cuts would be to meet the Paris climate targets. In 2019, the climate issue influenced the EU parliamentary elections. Guterres also visited four Pacific countries in spring 2019, including Fiji, the host of COP23. At the UN General Assembly in New York, Greta Thunberg delivered her angry “How dare you?” speech to heads of state after crossing the Atlantic in a sailboat.
The British Guardian declared in 2019 that it would no longer write of “climate change,” but only of “climate crisis, climate emergency, ecological breakdown.” And the UN bodies have also been referring to the “climate crisis” since 2019.
Guterres was featured on the cover of the US Time magazine in May 2019 – with a grim expression on his face and standing in water up to his knees in a suit. In an extensive Time interview, he explained why he had placed the climate crisis at the top of his agenda:
Since then, Guterres has chosen increasingly drastic formulations. At COP26 in Glasgow, he demanded, “Enough of killing ourselves with carbon, enough of treating nature like a toilet, we are digging our own graves!” He said it was “an illusion” to believe that emissions trends were reversing. “And even if the recent pledges were clear and credible – and there are serious questions about some of them – we are still careening towards climate catastrophe.”
In the summer of 2022, Guterres warned that the fossil fuel industry has “humanity by the throat.” Nothing is greater than the “danger of fossil fuel expansion.” Fossil fuel companies “exploited precisely the same scandalous tactics as big tobacco decades before” to “undermine ambitious climate policies” with “pseudoscience and public relations.”
Lutz Weischer of Germanwatch says that to Guterres, the fight against the climate crisis is “the priority issue of his term in office.” Guterres sees his role as a “moral authority.” He uses his accesses in Washington, Beijing, Brussels and other capitals “very regularly, as far as we hear, to push for progress on climate action and finance.”
The “many appointments he keeps” show how important the topic is to him. For example, his appearance at the Africa Climate Summit in early September is not a given. What remains unclear, however, is how effectively he is organizing support for his proposals for an excess profits tax on oil and gas, for example, and whether he is making sufficient use of his role in the UN Security Council for the climate issue. A UN secretary-general has to choose between being a moral authority or finding compromises behind the scenes. “He has chosen the former,” Weischer says, “and I think that’s a sensible prioritization.”
Despite all the UN Secretary-General’s admonitions, global emissions – except for the period during the Covid pandemic – have continued to rise. At COP27, Guterres said, “We are in the fight of our lives. And we are losing.” He added, “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.”
By then, scientists had already warned that 2023 would probably be one of the hottest years ever because of the weather phenomenon El Niño. And that’s precisely what happened: A year full of records for temperatures in the air, in the ocean, for wildfires in the Northern Hemisphere and regional heat and heavy rain disasters. As Guterres described in July 2023, “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”
Earlier this week, the Sustainable Development Goals Summit (SDG Summit) took place at the United Nations in New York. It was a mid-term assessment of how nations are progressing towards achieving their sustainability goals. The conclusion was that these goals are still far from being met. This also presents a challenge for climate action, as demonstrated by Honduras. In regions where poverty, conflict, hunger and a lack of education and healthcare converge, efficient climate action measures are challenging to implement.
Central America, and Honduras in particular, are considered highly vulnerable to the risks of the climate crisis. Large parts of the region are situated in the so-called “drought corridor“, where rising temperatures have led to increasing aridity. Especially when combined with the recurring weather phenomenon El Niño, the region often experiences crop failures. Additionally, Central America is prone to hurricanes. Due to climate change, these hurricanes are becoming more intense. In late 2020, Hurricanes Iota and Eta devastated entire regions in quick succession. Rising sea levels are already engulfing entire villages. Despite this vulnerability, the region contributes very little to the global climate crisis. For example, Honduras is responsible for only about 0.03 percent of global emissions. Therefore, the country and the entire region urgently need to invest in climate adaptation, requiring international financial support.
Providing funds from the UN’s loss and damage fund and other climate financing sources to Central America to assist those most affected is a potential solution. However, this is not straightforward due to political instability in the region. Mercy Ayala, who works for the Honduran non-governmental organization ERIC-SJ on human rights and climate, explains, “We are not only exposed to many climate risks but there are also no political preparations for such crises and disasters.”
From 2014 to 2022, the country was governed by the authoritarian narco-president Juan Orlando Hernández, who is currently imprisoned in the United States. Since last year, Xiomara Castro has become the democratic president again. However, Castro has other priorities than preparing for the consequences of climate change. She has declared a state of emergency to reduce the country’s murder rate and the country is grappling with the challenges of corruption. Similar situations can be observed in neighboring countries – El Salvador is combating gang violence, while Nicaragua’s authoritarian president is increasingly restricting fundamental rights.
Hector Camilo Morales Munoz, who works for the think-tank Adelphi on climate security and diplomacy, comments on this situation, saying, “Poverty, conflict, corruption and the climate crisis create a vicious circle in the region. Conflicts have a negative impact on living conditions, further reducing the ability to adapt.”
Countering this challenge is not easy with traditional development or climate financing. Corruption and instability plague all of Central America. For instance, a study found that corruption cost Honduras approximately 12.5 percent of its GDP in 2018. In late July, 117 million dollars from the Green Climate Fund, originally intended for forest projects in Nicaragua, were frozen due to human rights violations against indigenous communities.
“Latin American countries have never been politically stable; they have always been restless and unstable,” says a climate expert from Central America who preferred not to be named due to existing repression against critics and non-governmental organizations. Effective climate action in Central America can only work through close collaboration between local social movements and foreign solidarity, according to the expert. Public entities, as well as large corporations and businesses, should be critically considered as actors in this process.
“Successful measures should be conflict-sensitive,” says Morales Munoz of Adelphi. This means taking into account the local context, such as the role of organized crime and drug trafficking. Furthermore, the disbursement of funds should be linked to conditions, according to Morales Munoz.
To protect climate action measures from corruption, they should involve local populations in projects and democratize access to knowledge. “This can be an effective shield against corrupt actors while empowering people,” says Morales Munoz. The Central American expert concurs, stating, “Civil society must have access to climate financing, not just governments.” Currently, it is challenging for NGOs to access international climate financing. New mechanisms need to be established, and no debts should be incurred.
Morales Munoz emphasizes that climate policy should incorporate local challenges and recognize conflicts between economic development, poverty alleviation and climate action. Climate projects in Central America have a better chance of success if they bring development-related co-benefits alongside climate action, such as creating jobs or boosting the economy. While climate action is becoming increasingly important in international discourse, economic growth and poverty alleviation remain the top priorities at the local level.
Specifically, this means investing in climate-resilient infrastructure such as water, energy and healthcare facilities or projects for food security in disaster-prone areas. It helps in both the fight against poverty and adapting to the climate crisis. Importantly, traditional knowledge and nature-based solutions should be considered, including knowledge from indigenous communities and lifestyles like “Buen Vivir”. This is a Latin American concept that integrates social and ecological aspects and is often seen as an alternative to Western development concepts. So far, this approach has seen limited success. On the contrary, studies show that, alongside food insecurity and violence, climate change has become another driver of migration from Central America to the United States.
The research in Honduras was conducted as part of a research trip funded by the non-governmental organization Christian Initiative Romero e.V. and the EU project Climate Game On.
The Chinese government has released new rules for establishing spot markets for electricity trading. According to Yan Qin, an energy expert at the analytics firm Refinitiv, these rules represent a “milestone in creating a unified national electricity market”. Experts believe this could help push coal-generated electricity out of the grid and pave the way for cheaper electricity from renewables. A comprehensive electricity market reform could reduce Chinese CO2 emissions by over a third by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency.
Despite 20 years of reform efforts, China still lacks a unified electricity market. This has favored coal-generated electricity. More than 20 provinces often prioritize self-sufficiency over trading electricity with neighboring provinces. Consequently, instead of importing green electricity from neighboring provinces, new coal power plants have been built.
So far, electricity trading in China relies on a mix of long-term contracts and government regulations that control prices. Most of these contracts are within provinces. Cross-provincial and short-term spot trading are still quite limited and mostly occur in pilot projects.
Spot markets are important for trading electricity nearly in real-time. The newly released plans aim to liberalize the market and promote short-term trading, according to experts. Lauri Myllyvirta, an energy expert at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), notes, “A functioning electricity market could drastically reduce the need for coal-fired power plants and facilitate the integration of large amounts of variable, clean electricity generation.” Currently, vast wind and solar parks are being built in the deserts of western China to supply power to industries along the eastern and southern coasts. However, this requires a functioning national electricity market, according to analysts at the consulting firm Trivium China.
A nationwide spot market, in addition to long-term electricity trading, means that when wind and solar energy are abundant, cheap renewables can push coal-generated electricity out of the grid. During calm or cloudy periods, renewables can be imported from other provinces, eliminating the need to run local coal power plants. According to Myllyvirta, a functioning electricity market would make the construction of new coal power plants unnecessary. According to the International Energy Agency, comprehensive electricity market reform could reduce emissions by up to 38 percent by 2035.
However, Yan Qin also points out that these new plans are just the beginning. She states on X, “There is still a long way to go before spot markets are fully functional. I think it will take until 2030.” While the new plans make it easier to include renewables in electricity trading, more precise regulations and implementation decisions are still needed, Qin says.
Currently, the provinces are responsible for organizing and reforming electricity markets. Sometimes, strong vested interests within provinces hinder the establishment of an efficient overall system, according to Myllyvirta. State-owned energy companies prefer coal from their own provinces because it preserves jobs in coal mines and power plants and promotes self-sufficiency. “The Chinese provinces are highly mercantilist and favor local production, even if it is far from cost-optimal,” says Myllyvirta.
Cross-provincial electricity trading is in the national and international interest but not necessarily in the interest of individual provinces. This is one reason why the International Energy Agency suggested in an April 2023 report that national institutions should coordinate the transformation of electricity trading more strongly. However, this would also require upgrading the national electricity grid to ensure the flow of energy.
Yet, a national electricity market would mean a complete overhaul of the existing system, according to analysts at Trivium China. “China’s energy transition will lead to seismic political-economic upheavals, creating new winners and losers in various provinces and industries.” Additionally, on a free electricity market, prices are determined by supply and demand, which removes them from the political influence of Beijing. Whether the central government can accept rising electricity prices during economic hardships is uncertain. For all these reasons, the central government is likely to continue cautiously reforming the electricity market.
The extent of Antarctic sea ice is currently at a record low for the winter months in the region. As the BBC reports, this is a worrying alarm signal for scientists.
The Antarctic ice sheet significantly influences the climate: It reflects solar radiation and cools the water in the region. As the ice melts, an unstoppable ice-albedo feedback could occur: The faster the ice melts, the more heat the ocean’s dark surface will absorb instead of reflecting. The warmer ocean then causes the ice to melt even faster. Moreover, the melted ice contributes to the rising sea level.
Antarctica has long been considered particularly resistant to global warming. Until 2016, the size of the sea ice actually increased. Since then, the decline of the ice sheet has repeatedly set new records. kul
Above all, the climate crisis aggravates the food situation of people who are not its originators – and providing humanitarian aid in “failed states” is far more difficult than elsewhere. Whether droughts like in the Horn of Africa or floods like in Libya: When the impacts of global warming hit a conflict region, they lead to complex, long-lasting crises.
The United Nations estimates that by 2023, 339 million people worldwide will be dependent on humanitarian aid. That is more than ever before: a sad record. In order to reach at least a majority of these people, additional funding of 51.5 billion US dollars is needed.
There are many reasons why the number of humanitarian crises and people in need is on the rise: War and violent conflicts as currently in Sudan, displacement and the massive violation of human rights in Myanmar, severe natural disasters such as the quake in Morocco or the floods in Libya. Today, one in 29 people is dependent on humanitarian aid.
Man-made climate change also contributes to the increase of hunger and poverty. Extreme weather events – unusual heat, droughts intensified as a result, heavy rain and resulting floods – bring new disasters. In this way, the climate crisis exacerbates existing emergencies.
Meanwhile, awareness of longer-term development cooperation is being pushed back, as data from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) shows. From 2013 to 2022, spending on humanitarian aid increased by 95 percent, whereas spending on development cooperation increased by only 37 percent. Yet, in 2022, only 56 percent of global humanitarian funding needs were met.
The German aid agency Welthungerhilfe focuses most of its work on fragile states, such as Afghanistan or Sudan. Libya, which has just been hit by devastating floods, is also one such fragile state. Providing disaster relief in these countries is particularly difficult because the fragile or even non-existent government, and the takeover of government power by non-state actors, for example in north-western Syria or in parts of Libya,
In Afghanistan, northwest Syria or Libya, aid organizations often have no choice but to negotiate with local rulers about access and sound out every day how and where help can best be provided. This takes up valuable time and resources – to the detriment of the suffering population.
If the legitimacy of a recipient government is questionable or if state structures are dysfunctional, bilateral state aid might be suspended. NGOs, on the other hand, often continue their donation-financed work. Classic humanitarian aid, to which Welthungerhilfe is also committed, follows principles, not interests. It wants, it must save lives. It falls to politicians to create the necessary framework conditions, or to lobby at the international level for their creation.
Already, the part of the global population particularly affected by the climate crisis often lives where countries are unable to adapt their infrastructure to the consequences of global warming or repair climate damage, where early warning systems are lacking and disaster prevention is neglected. Thus, less vulnerable countries are also increasingly suffering from the effects of climate-induced extreme weather events – but the situation is particularly precarious in fragile states.
In Afghanistan, for example, people are suffering more and more from the consequences of global warming. The climate in the country is becoming hotter and drier, droughts occur more frequently. Experts predict that extreme droughts will also become more frequent in the future. Moreover, after the Taliban seized power, it is increasingly unclear how and in what form aid can still be provided. The German government has suspended its development cooperation; the power seizure has plunged the country into a dramatic socio-economic crisis.
It is one of the biggest humanitarian crises ever. The livelihoods of more than 30 million Afghan people depend on agriculture and are therefore directly threatened by the effects of global warming. In addition, the human rights of women and girls are systematically violated, they are pushed out of public life. Nevertheless, many of them insist on continuing to work in ongoing aid projects. They bear the risk themselves – as do the humanitarian organizations in whose work they are involved.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that donors demand a unified, coordinated approach, while aid workers in the country prefer different, flexible approaches. Negotiations with the Taliban on the ground are essential to ensure that people in need receive help.
Although humanitarian aid around the world is dramatically underfunded, the German government is planning drastic budget cuts in this area as well. The budget of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development is to shrink next year – from 12.2 billion euros in 2023 – to 10.7 billion euros. For the Federal Foreign Office, a reduction from 7.5 billion to 5.2 billion euros is planned. This also affects humanitarian aid.
However, in order to be able to respond to the growing number of crises, reliable, multi-year, flexible and needs-based funding would be indispensable. German policy must fight crises – especially hunger crises – coordinated between the different ministries.
But above all, it must pursue an ambitious and coherent climate policy at all levels. Only this will reduce humanitarian crises in the medium to long term – and thus reduce the number of starving people worldwide.
Michael Kühn is Senior Advisor Policy at Welthungerhilfe. He previously headed the organization’s office in Haiti.
Yesterday, António Guterres hosted the UN Climate Ambition Summit. The UN Secretary-General presented himself as a bouncer. Initially, more than 100 heads of state and non-state actors wanted to appear at the summit. But Guterres only allowed just under 30 “first movers and doers” to speak. Important players such as the USA and China had to stay outside. In doing so, the UN Secretary-General sends a clear signal that they must do more to tackle the climate crisis. We have summarized the new pledges and proposals of the “first movers and doers” among countries. And we also describe how the UN Secretary-General has verbally radicalized himself under the impact of the climate crisis – and how he uses his anger strategically.
The UN SDG Summit on Sustainable Development Goals was held earlier this week. Here, too, there is too little progress. Lisa Kuner researched how poverty, hunger, corruption and violence are hindering climate efforts in Honduras. And Michael Kühn of the German aid organization Welthungerhilfe explains why climate change ravages failed states all the more fiercely and how humanitarian aid could respond.
On Thursday and Friday, the climate issue will continue on the fringes of the UN General Assembly. As always, we will take a close look and present you with key results and observations in a special edition on Friday.
With 70 days to go before COP28, it’s becoming clear what ideas and strategies countries advocating for more climate action intend to present. At the “Climate Ambition Summit“, part of the UN General Assembly UNGA78 convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the main points are emerging. Progressive countries want to:
Among the tightly scheduled statements by the 34 heads of state and government, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz conveyed the most optimism. He declared that 2023 could become a “decisive moment” for international climate action. There are reasons for hope because “words are turning into actions”. Germany fulfilled its promised climate financing of six billion euros per year by 2022, ahead of the 2025 target. The coal phase-out by 2038 is legally established, the G20 has approved tripling renewable energies and Scholz’s “Climate Club” is willing to admit more than the current 27 members.
This confidence wasn’t shared by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his opening remarks. On the contrary, Guterres stated, “Humanity has opened the gates to hell.” However, he emphasized that the future is not predetermined; it will be shaped by the pioneers he invited to the summit. With this “Ambition Summit”, Guterres is attempting to enlarge the climate action group within the UN and strengthen its influence.
Prior to the event, there was intense behind-the-scenes wrangling. Guterres made it clear that he would only allow government leaders to speak if they presented new and far-reaching climate action proposals. From over 100 applications for the three-minute speaking slots, his team, after lengthy internal discussions, compiled a list of 34 states and seven non-state actors at the last minute.
It was also noteworthy who was not on the list: neither major polluters like the USA, China, Russia, Indonesia, Japan nor traditional pioneering countries like the UK, Norway and Sweden. There was much discussion about the speakers’ list, according to the UN.
Guterres reiterated his calls for a global “solidarity pact” and an “acceleration agenda” for global climate action. Industrialized countries should become climate-neutral by 2040 and provide more funding to help poorer countries with the necessary transition. This includes measures such as a coal phase-out by 2030 in industrialized countries, an end to fossil fuel subsidies and no new gas and oil projects.
The plans of the 34 heads of state, leaders of international organizations, members of civil society and business leaders can be categorized into different groups:
Despite all the agreement, it’s clear that the front of pioneers is not united. A statement from the “High Ambition Coalition” (HAC), which called for a rapid exit from fossil fuels, a rapid expansion of renewables and “solidarity” in mobilizing “trillions” for climate financing the day before, received support from only 17 government leaders, including those from France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Palau and Kenya. Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not sign the document, even though Germany has traditionally been a significant supporter of the HAC. The government had not provided an explanation for this by the time of Table.Media’s editorial deadline on Wednesday night.
The UN chief’s invitation was clear: At his Climate Ambition Summit in New York on September 20, 2023, he expected governments, businesses, the financial world, cities and civil society to take “new, tangible, and credible climate action to accelerate the pace of change.” This “price of admission is non-negotiable,” António Guterres said when he announced the summit.
It will be a “no-nonsense summit. Without exceptions. Without compromises.” There will be “no room for back-sliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters or repackaging of announcements of previous years.”
Undiplomatic words for the world’s highest diplomat. The UN Secretary-General’s clear statements follow a consistent development. Since António Guterres took office in 2017, his stance and speech on the climate crisis have significantly radicalized. This is the consequence of a lack of progress in climate diplomacy coupled with an escalating climate crisis. But it is also a clear strategy by the UN chief to ensure visibility and influence for his beleaguered organization.
At the beginning of his term, the former Portuguese prime minister tended to focus on the issue of “peace.” At COP23 in Germany, he urged delegates to be “more ambitious” but also saw “encouraging examples of progress.” And to the negotiators, he called out, the world is “counting on your foresight and wisdom!”
A year later, at COP24 in Katowice, Poland, Guterres refocused on warnings and cautions. Climate change was “the single most important issue,” and it was difficult to understand why so little progress was being made. Climate action is not only the right thing to do, but also “makes social and economic sense,” Guterres said in his address to the plenary. After all, he said, there is “significant global momentum for climate action.”
Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation (ECF), told Table.Media that Guterres “has been a true climate leader since COP24 in Katowice, a true diplomatic artist, working to keep the climate at the top of the international agenda.” That is “no easy task,” especially since the “G20 still hasn’t acted to transition away from fossil fuels. More than ever, we need his strong, realistic words.”At the following COP25 in Madrid in 2019, Guterres already sounded quite different: The world was on the verge of sleepwalking “past the point of no return” and must end the “war against nature.” For the first time in his official speech, he echoed demands from the climate change movement – which dominated the 2019 Madrid climate summit with Greta Thunberg. Guterres demanded “a path where more fossil fuels remain where they should be – in the ground.” and ending our “addiction to coal.” Instead of small steps, he called for “a transformation” and “a rapid and deep change” in they way we live.
What had happened? In 2018, the IPCC’s “1.5 degrees special report” made clear how crucial quick emission cuts would be to meet the Paris climate targets. In 2019, the climate issue influenced the EU parliamentary elections. Guterres also visited four Pacific countries in spring 2019, including Fiji, the host of COP23. At the UN General Assembly in New York, Greta Thunberg delivered her angry “How dare you?” speech to heads of state after crossing the Atlantic in a sailboat.
The British Guardian declared in 2019 that it would no longer write of “climate change,” but only of “climate crisis, climate emergency, ecological breakdown.” And the UN bodies have also been referring to the “climate crisis” since 2019.
Guterres was featured on the cover of the US Time magazine in May 2019 – with a grim expression on his face and standing in water up to his knees in a suit. In an extensive Time interview, he explained why he had placed the climate crisis at the top of his agenda:
Since then, Guterres has chosen increasingly drastic formulations. At COP26 in Glasgow, he demanded, “Enough of killing ourselves with carbon, enough of treating nature like a toilet, we are digging our own graves!” He said it was “an illusion” to believe that emissions trends were reversing. “And even if the recent pledges were clear and credible – and there are serious questions about some of them – we are still careening towards climate catastrophe.”
In the summer of 2022, Guterres warned that the fossil fuel industry has “humanity by the throat.” Nothing is greater than the “danger of fossil fuel expansion.” Fossil fuel companies “exploited precisely the same scandalous tactics as big tobacco decades before” to “undermine ambitious climate policies” with “pseudoscience and public relations.”
Lutz Weischer of Germanwatch says that to Guterres, the fight against the climate crisis is “the priority issue of his term in office.” Guterres sees his role as a “moral authority.” He uses his accesses in Washington, Beijing, Brussels and other capitals “very regularly, as far as we hear, to push for progress on climate action and finance.”
The “many appointments he keeps” show how important the topic is to him. For example, his appearance at the Africa Climate Summit in early September is not a given. What remains unclear, however, is how effectively he is organizing support for his proposals for an excess profits tax on oil and gas, for example, and whether he is making sufficient use of his role in the UN Security Council for the climate issue. A UN secretary-general has to choose between being a moral authority or finding compromises behind the scenes. “He has chosen the former,” Weischer says, “and I think that’s a sensible prioritization.”
Despite all the UN Secretary-General’s admonitions, global emissions – except for the period during the Covid pandemic – have continued to rise. At COP27, Guterres said, “We are in the fight of our lives. And we are losing.” He added, “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.”
By then, scientists had already warned that 2023 would probably be one of the hottest years ever because of the weather phenomenon El Niño. And that’s precisely what happened: A year full of records for temperatures in the air, in the ocean, for wildfires in the Northern Hemisphere and regional heat and heavy rain disasters. As Guterres described in July 2023, “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”
Earlier this week, the Sustainable Development Goals Summit (SDG Summit) took place at the United Nations in New York. It was a mid-term assessment of how nations are progressing towards achieving their sustainability goals. The conclusion was that these goals are still far from being met. This also presents a challenge for climate action, as demonstrated by Honduras. In regions where poverty, conflict, hunger and a lack of education and healthcare converge, efficient climate action measures are challenging to implement.
Central America, and Honduras in particular, are considered highly vulnerable to the risks of the climate crisis. Large parts of the region are situated in the so-called “drought corridor“, where rising temperatures have led to increasing aridity. Especially when combined with the recurring weather phenomenon El Niño, the region often experiences crop failures. Additionally, Central America is prone to hurricanes. Due to climate change, these hurricanes are becoming more intense. In late 2020, Hurricanes Iota and Eta devastated entire regions in quick succession. Rising sea levels are already engulfing entire villages. Despite this vulnerability, the region contributes very little to the global climate crisis. For example, Honduras is responsible for only about 0.03 percent of global emissions. Therefore, the country and the entire region urgently need to invest in climate adaptation, requiring international financial support.
Providing funds from the UN’s loss and damage fund and other climate financing sources to Central America to assist those most affected is a potential solution. However, this is not straightforward due to political instability in the region. Mercy Ayala, who works for the Honduran non-governmental organization ERIC-SJ on human rights and climate, explains, “We are not only exposed to many climate risks but there are also no political preparations for such crises and disasters.”
From 2014 to 2022, the country was governed by the authoritarian narco-president Juan Orlando Hernández, who is currently imprisoned in the United States. Since last year, Xiomara Castro has become the democratic president again. However, Castro has other priorities than preparing for the consequences of climate change. She has declared a state of emergency to reduce the country’s murder rate and the country is grappling with the challenges of corruption. Similar situations can be observed in neighboring countries – El Salvador is combating gang violence, while Nicaragua’s authoritarian president is increasingly restricting fundamental rights.
Hector Camilo Morales Munoz, who works for the think-tank Adelphi on climate security and diplomacy, comments on this situation, saying, “Poverty, conflict, corruption and the climate crisis create a vicious circle in the region. Conflicts have a negative impact on living conditions, further reducing the ability to adapt.”
Countering this challenge is not easy with traditional development or climate financing. Corruption and instability plague all of Central America. For instance, a study found that corruption cost Honduras approximately 12.5 percent of its GDP in 2018. In late July, 117 million dollars from the Green Climate Fund, originally intended for forest projects in Nicaragua, were frozen due to human rights violations against indigenous communities.
“Latin American countries have never been politically stable; they have always been restless and unstable,” says a climate expert from Central America who preferred not to be named due to existing repression against critics and non-governmental organizations. Effective climate action in Central America can only work through close collaboration between local social movements and foreign solidarity, according to the expert. Public entities, as well as large corporations and businesses, should be critically considered as actors in this process.
“Successful measures should be conflict-sensitive,” says Morales Munoz of Adelphi. This means taking into account the local context, such as the role of organized crime and drug trafficking. Furthermore, the disbursement of funds should be linked to conditions, according to Morales Munoz.
To protect climate action measures from corruption, they should involve local populations in projects and democratize access to knowledge. “This can be an effective shield against corrupt actors while empowering people,” says Morales Munoz. The Central American expert concurs, stating, “Civil society must have access to climate financing, not just governments.” Currently, it is challenging for NGOs to access international climate financing. New mechanisms need to be established, and no debts should be incurred.
Morales Munoz emphasizes that climate policy should incorporate local challenges and recognize conflicts between economic development, poverty alleviation and climate action. Climate projects in Central America have a better chance of success if they bring development-related co-benefits alongside climate action, such as creating jobs or boosting the economy. While climate action is becoming increasingly important in international discourse, economic growth and poverty alleviation remain the top priorities at the local level.
Specifically, this means investing in climate-resilient infrastructure such as water, energy and healthcare facilities or projects for food security in disaster-prone areas. It helps in both the fight against poverty and adapting to the climate crisis. Importantly, traditional knowledge and nature-based solutions should be considered, including knowledge from indigenous communities and lifestyles like “Buen Vivir”. This is a Latin American concept that integrates social and ecological aspects and is often seen as an alternative to Western development concepts. So far, this approach has seen limited success. On the contrary, studies show that, alongside food insecurity and violence, climate change has become another driver of migration from Central America to the United States.
The research in Honduras was conducted as part of a research trip funded by the non-governmental organization Christian Initiative Romero e.V. and the EU project Climate Game On.
The Chinese government has released new rules for establishing spot markets for electricity trading. According to Yan Qin, an energy expert at the analytics firm Refinitiv, these rules represent a “milestone in creating a unified national electricity market”. Experts believe this could help push coal-generated electricity out of the grid and pave the way for cheaper electricity from renewables. A comprehensive electricity market reform could reduce Chinese CO2 emissions by over a third by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency.
Despite 20 years of reform efforts, China still lacks a unified electricity market. This has favored coal-generated electricity. More than 20 provinces often prioritize self-sufficiency over trading electricity with neighboring provinces. Consequently, instead of importing green electricity from neighboring provinces, new coal power plants have been built.
So far, electricity trading in China relies on a mix of long-term contracts and government regulations that control prices. Most of these contracts are within provinces. Cross-provincial and short-term spot trading are still quite limited and mostly occur in pilot projects.
Spot markets are important for trading electricity nearly in real-time. The newly released plans aim to liberalize the market and promote short-term trading, according to experts. Lauri Myllyvirta, an energy expert at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), notes, “A functioning electricity market could drastically reduce the need for coal-fired power plants and facilitate the integration of large amounts of variable, clean electricity generation.” Currently, vast wind and solar parks are being built in the deserts of western China to supply power to industries along the eastern and southern coasts. However, this requires a functioning national electricity market, according to analysts at the consulting firm Trivium China.
A nationwide spot market, in addition to long-term electricity trading, means that when wind and solar energy are abundant, cheap renewables can push coal-generated electricity out of the grid. During calm or cloudy periods, renewables can be imported from other provinces, eliminating the need to run local coal power plants. According to Myllyvirta, a functioning electricity market would make the construction of new coal power plants unnecessary. According to the International Energy Agency, comprehensive electricity market reform could reduce emissions by up to 38 percent by 2035.
However, Yan Qin also points out that these new plans are just the beginning. She states on X, “There is still a long way to go before spot markets are fully functional. I think it will take until 2030.” While the new plans make it easier to include renewables in electricity trading, more precise regulations and implementation decisions are still needed, Qin says.
Currently, the provinces are responsible for organizing and reforming electricity markets. Sometimes, strong vested interests within provinces hinder the establishment of an efficient overall system, according to Myllyvirta. State-owned energy companies prefer coal from their own provinces because it preserves jobs in coal mines and power plants and promotes self-sufficiency. “The Chinese provinces are highly mercantilist and favor local production, even if it is far from cost-optimal,” says Myllyvirta.
Cross-provincial electricity trading is in the national and international interest but not necessarily in the interest of individual provinces. This is one reason why the International Energy Agency suggested in an April 2023 report that national institutions should coordinate the transformation of electricity trading more strongly. However, this would also require upgrading the national electricity grid to ensure the flow of energy.
Yet, a national electricity market would mean a complete overhaul of the existing system, according to analysts at Trivium China. “China’s energy transition will lead to seismic political-economic upheavals, creating new winners and losers in various provinces and industries.” Additionally, on a free electricity market, prices are determined by supply and demand, which removes them from the political influence of Beijing. Whether the central government can accept rising electricity prices during economic hardships is uncertain. For all these reasons, the central government is likely to continue cautiously reforming the electricity market.
The extent of Antarctic sea ice is currently at a record low for the winter months in the region. As the BBC reports, this is a worrying alarm signal for scientists.
The Antarctic ice sheet significantly influences the climate: It reflects solar radiation and cools the water in the region. As the ice melts, an unstoppable ice-albedo feedback could occur: The faster the ice melts, the more heat the ocean’s dark surface will absorb instead of reflecting. The warmer ocean then causes the ice to melt even faster. Moreover, the melted ice contributes to the rising sea level.
Antarctica has long been considered particularly resistant to global warming. Until 2016, the size of the sea ice actually increased. Since then, the decline of the ice sheet has repeatedly set new records. kul
Above all, the climate crisis aggravates the food situation of people who are not its originators – and providing humanitarian aid in “failed states” is far more difficult than elsewhere. Whether droughts like in the Horn of Africa or floods like in Libya: When the impacts of global warming hit a conflict region, they lead to complex, long-lasting crises.
The United Nations estimates that by 2023, 339 million people worldwide will be dependent on humanitarian aid. That is more than ever before: a sad record. In order to reach at least a majority of these people, additional funding of 51.5 billion US dollars is needed.
There are many reasons why the number of humanitarian crises and people in need is on the rise: War and violent conflicts as currently in Sudan, displacement and the massive violation of human rights in Myanmar, severe natural disasters such as the quake in Morocco or the floods in Libya. Today, one in 29 people is dependent on humanitarian aid.
Man-made climate change also contributes to the increase of hunger and poverty. Extreme weather events – unusual heat, droughts intensified as a result, heavy rain and resulting floods – bring new disasters. In this way, the climate crisis exacerbates existing emergencies.
Meanwhile, awareness of longer-term development cooperation is being pushed back, as data from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) shows. From 2013 to 2022, spending on humanitarian aid increased by 95 percent, whereas spending on development cooperation increased by only 37 percent. Yet, in 2022, only 56 percent of global humanitarian funding needs were met.
The German aid agency Welthungerhilfe focuses most of its work on fragile states, such as Afghanistan or Sudan. Libya, which has just been hit by devastating floods, is also one such fragile state. Providing disaster relief in these countries is particularly difficult because the fragile or even non-existent government, and the takeover of government power by non-state actors, for example in north-western Syria or in parts of Libya,
In Afghanistan, northwest Syria or Libya, aid organizations often have no choice but to negotiate with local rulers about access and sound out every day how and where help can best be provided. This takes up valuable time and resources – to the detriment of the suffering population.
If the legitimacy of a recipient government is questionable or if state structures are dysfunctional, bilateral state aid might be suspended. NGOs, on the other hand, often continue their donation-financed work. Classic humanitarian aid, to which Welthungerhilfe is also committed, follows principles, not interests. It wants, it must save lives. It falls to politicians to create the necessary framework conditions, or to lobby at the international level for their creation.
Already, the part of the global population particularly affected by the climate crisis often lives where countries are unable to adapt their infrastructure to the consequences of global warming or repair climate damage, where early warning systems are lacking and disaster prevention is neglected. Thus, less vulnerable countries are also increasingly suffering from the effects of climate-induced extreme weather events – but the situation is particularly precarious in fragile states.
In Afghanistan, for example, people are suffering more and more from the consequences of global warming. The climate in the country is becoming hotter and drier, droughts occur more frequently. Experts predict that extreme droughts will also become more frequent in the future. Moreover, after the Taliban seized power, it is increasingly unclear how and in what form aid can still be provided. The German government has suspended its development cooperation; the power seizure has plunged the country into a dramatic socio-economic crisis.
It is one of the biggest humanitarian crises ever. The livelihoods of more than 30 million Afghan people depend on agriculture and are therefore directly threatened by the effects of global warming. In addition, the human rights of women and girls are systematically violated, they are pushed out of public life. Nevertheless, many of them insist on continuing to work in ongoing aid projects. They bear the risk themselves – as do the humanitarian organizations in whose work they are involved.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that donors demand a unified, coordinated approach, while aid workers in the country prefer different, flexible approaches. Negotiations with the Taliban on the ground are essential to ensure that people in need receive help.
Although humanitarian aid around the world is dramatically underfunded, the German government is planning drastic budget cuts in this area as well. The budget of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development is to shrink next year – from 12.2 billion euros in 2023 – to 10.7 billion euros. For the Federal Foreign Office, a reduction from 7.5 billion to 5.2 billion euros is planned. This also affects humanitarian aid.
However, in order to be able to respond to the growing number of crises, reliable, multi-year, flexible and needs-based funding would be indispensable. German policy must fight crises – especially hunger crises – coordinated between the different ministries.
But above all, it must pursue an ambitious and coherent climate policy at all levels. Only this will reduce humanitarian crises in the medium to long term – and thus reduce the number of starving people worldwide.
Michael Kühn is Senior Advisor Policy at Welthungerhilfe. He previously headed the organization’s office in Haiti.
