COP27: UN proposes action plan for early climate change warnings

By Nathan Morley

Speaking at the summit of world leaders during the ongoing 27th session of the Convention on Climate Change, Guterres said the plan would cost the equivalent of just 50 cents per person per year for the next five years.

The system, he said, would reach everyone on earth with early warnings against extreme weather.

The plan was drawn up by the World Meteorological Organization and signed by 50 countries.

Guterres  said while the number of recorded disasters has increased, half of the countries globally do not have early warning systems. The numbers are even worse for developing countries on the front lines of climate change, specially for Small Island Developing States.

The WMO said on its website that early warning systems are a relatively cheap way of protecting people and assets from hazards, including storms, floods, heatwaves and tsunamis.

Guterres' proposal came on the same day Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, addressed participants at the Summit.

Elsewhere, French President Emmanuel Macron urged world leaders to deliver climate justice and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said switching to renewable energy was a security policy imperative.

In a separate development, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he will raise the case of Egyptian-British hunger striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah with Egypt’s leadership during the COP meeting.

Fattah rose to prominence with Egypt’s 2011 uprising but has been detained for most of the period since. He was sentenced in December to five years on charges of spreading false news, he has been on hunger strike for over 200 days.

COP27 opened on Sunday with a warning from the United Nations that our planet is “sending a distress signal”. A new report released by the reveals that the past eight years were on track to be the warmest on record.