G20 chair Indonesia has, in a meeting this week called on environment officials across the world’s leading economies to act together to combat a warming planet or risk plunging it into “uncharted territory”.
The call comes at the end of a month in which more than 1,000 people died in Pakistan following flooding which is blamed on climate change and a crippling drought exacerbated by a record heat wave spread across half of China.
Addressing the delegate during the meeting, Indonesian Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar said that global environmental problems require global solutions; otherwise, the planet could end up in a situation “where no future will be sustainable.
“We cannot hide from the fact that the world is facing increasingly compounding challenges,” she said, referring to energy price spikes and global food shortages.
She said “We know that climate change could become an amplifier and multiplier of the crises. We cannot solve those global environmental problems on our own.”
Read also: UN worried as flood submerges Pakistan
She maintained that climate change would not only wipe out all development progress achieved over past decades, particularly in emerging economies but also propel the world over an environmental tipping point into uncharted territory where no future will be sustainable.
She further explained that some of the world’s top economies and emerging nations are being increasingly hit by record heat, flash floods and droughts — phenomena that scientists say will only become more frequent and intense due to climate change.
According to reports, the meeting is only a prelude to a November leaders’ summit where Indonesian President Joko Widodo has said Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would attend despite Moscow’s increasing isolation after invading Ukraine.
While Britain blamed Russia’s military assault on its neighbour for exacerbating energy problems, Sharma said the energy crisis sparked by the war showed “the vulnerability of countries relying on fossil fuels controlled by hostile actors” and that “climate security has become synonymous” with energy security.
In attendance at the meeting were US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, Britain’s Climate Minister Alok Sharma and officials from India, Australia, Italy, Brazil, Japan, South Korea and the European Union among others.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
