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Upwards of 40,000 people have flown from around the world to attend the United Nations COP 27 climate conference that began Sunday at a plush seaside resort in Egypt.
The opening day erupted in applause for the work of self-styled “activists” before delegates agreed with each other the issue of whether rich countries should compensate poor third world countries for “climate change” should be debated as a matter of urgency.
The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh comes with a packed agenda, drawing massed attendees for two weeks of talks and climate debate.
Simon Stiell, the U.N.’s climate change executive secretary, warned he would not be a “custodian of backsliding” on the goal of slashing greenhouse emissions 45 percent by 2030 to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above late-19th-century levels.
“We will be holding people to account, be they presidents, prime ministers, CEOs,” Stiell said as the 13-day summit kicked off.
“The heart of implementation is everybody everywhere in the world every single day doing everything they possibly can to address the climate crisis,” he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres used the opportunity to lament the world is in peril as never before.