Leaders of the Cop31 climate summit urged the world to accelerate the fight against global warming as rising temperatures and an increasing number of climate-driven disasters threaten lives and the global economy, as the annual meeting began in Turkey on Monday.
The comments at the start of the two-week UN conference were an appeal to governments to focus on climate, even as other international crises from war to soaring inflation and the uncertainty of AI compete for their attention.
“The urgency of this moment must drive us forward,” UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in prepared remarks for the opening of the event on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, adding that progress so far was “nowhere near fast enough”.