Belem: UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday called for countries at climate talks in Brazil to compromise and “show willingness and flexibility to deliver results,” even if they fall short of the strongest measures some nations want.
“We are down to the wire and the world is watching Belem,” Guterres said, asking negotiators to engage in good faith in the last two scheduled days of talks, which already missed a self-imposed deadline Wednesday for progress on a few key issues. The conference, with this year’s edition known as COP30, frequently runs longer than its scheduled two weeks. “Communities on the front lines are watching, too — counting flooded homes, failed harvests, lost livelihoods — and asking, how much more must we suffer?’” Guterres said. “They’ve heard enough excuses and demand results.”
On contentious issues involving more detailed plans to phase out fossil fuels and financial aid to poorer countries, Guterres said he was “perfectly convinced” that compromise was possible and dismissed the idea that not adopting the strongest measures would be a failure.
Asked whether he had a message for US President Donald Trump, who has pulled the world’s second-largest carbon polluter out of climate talks: “We are waiting for you.”
When asked if there was any hope that Trump would change his tune on climate change, Guterres smiled and said: “Hope is the last thing that dies.”
At a UN session in September, Trump called predictions of climate change a ” con job.? The US federal government is absent from the negotiations in Belem on the edge of the Amazon. Guterres was more forceful in what he wanted rich countries to do for poor countries, especially those in need of tens of billions of dollars to adapt to the floods, droughts, storms and heat waves triggered by worsening climate change.