A multitude of world political leaders spoke this Friday at the Dubai climate summit (COP28) from the lectern of the main auditorium with promises of financial support for the recently created loss and damage fund – which compensates nations especially vulnerable to disasters caused . due to climate change – and without forgetting the Gaza crisis, which occupied a privileged place in the speeches.
Almost 80 heads of state and government signed up to speak at the Global Climate Action Summit and, although some finally gave up without explaining the reason – such as the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog -, the vast majority had exactly three minutes before the meeting. global audience to express their perspective on the environmental crisis.
Many, like Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, promised money for the loss and damage fund, 20 million euros ($21.7 million) in the case of Spain. For her part, the Italian president Giorgia Meloni raised the figure to 100 million euros (109 million dollars).
The European Union, through the President of the European Commission, Úrsula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, called for greater global ambition against the climate crisis and asked to “reduce as soon as possible” CO₂ emissions. , which must decrease from 2025. The world must “get rid as soon as possible of dependence on fossil energies, which put the common future in danger,” Michel urged.
For his part, King Charles III of the United Kingdom hoped “with all his heart” that COP28 would be “another turning point” towards “a genuine transformation” in the fight against the climate crisis, an “existential threat” to the planet. . “True action is required” to protect the most vulnerable victims, the monarch said.
The example of Gaza
The crisis in the Gaza Strip, where fighting resumed after several days of truce, became an exceptional place in the presentations, and the situation that is happening there was compared to the ravages of the climate crisis.
The most eloquent was the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who directly linked the environmental damage caused by the carbon emissions “of those who have the most” with the indiscriminate massacres that, according to statements collected by EFE, are being committed in Palestinian territory.
Thus, he pointed out that the same “barbarism” that is seen today in Palestine is what awaits the south “if the bearers of the carbon-intensive wealth of the north” do not allow “the emitting chimneys to be turned off. That is, they do not “They will stop consuming oil, coal and gas, which will irreversibly break the pillars that support human life on the planet.”
“And it will be unequal, and most of the victims will be in countries that emit little CO₂. Without North-South wealth transfers, they will have less water and will go north (…). The exodus will be thousands of millions. “Hitler hits the homes of the European and North American middle class and many have already made him enter,” he added.
Thus, there will be “violence, barbarism itself. What we see in Gaza is the rehearsal of the climate future,” he added.
Abdullah II of Jordan asked the international community not to stand idly by in the face of “massive destruction from an incessant war” like that in Gaza.
“In Gaza, people live with very little clean water and scarce food resources and the climate threatens to magnify the devastation of war,” he said before recalling that COP28 is a meeting of world leaders and organizations to achieve a joint climate response. that it must be “inclusive.”
“We have to be inclusive of the most vulnerable: the affected Palestinians. We have to face the real danger of food insecurity, achieve a sustainable supply of food for the Strip,” said the Jordanian king.
