UN climate chief says 3°C hotter world ‘just not possible’

BARCELONA: Climate change is an “existential issue” for humankind, and stepping up efforts to keep warming to globally agreed limits is urgent, the UN climate chief said on Monday, calling on governments to make progress at talks in Bonn.

The mid-year climate negotiations are tasked with resolving outstanding issues in setting rules for the 2015 Paris climate accord, ahead of an annual conference in Chile in December.

Patricia Espinosa, head of the UN climate change secretariat, said existing country pledges to cut planet-warming emissions would heat the planet by 3 degrees Celsius (5.4F) from pre-industrial times.

“That is just not possible,” she said, adding it would leave people sicker and result in battles over resources such as water and land, with coastal residents losing homes to rising seas. “We are literally in a climate emergency, and... we are increasingly hearing that this is the fight of our lives,” she said.

The Paris Agreement, now ratified by 185 countries, set a goal to limit the rise in average global temperatures to “well below” 2C and to strive for 1.5C. Temperatures have increased by about 1C already.

“It’s time that all people open their eyes to just how urgent things are,” Espinosa told journalists on the first day of the talks. “We need to get to the 1.5 degree goal.” Doing so would provide benefits in the form of less air pollution - much of which is caused by burning fossil fuels for transport, power and industry - better health for children, cleaner water and green jobs, she stressed.

As the Bonn talks got under way, developing countries that are suffering some of the worst impacts of wilder weather - from sizzling temperatures in India to cyclone devastation in Mozambique - need more funding to try to cope, campaigners said.

Harjeet Singh, who leads on climate change for charity ActionAid, said “it’s all about life and death” for impoverished communities facing wilder weather with very little protection.