Biggest polluters did not make climate pledge

UNITED NATIONS (AP):

The 77 nations who committed on Monday to carbon neutrality by 2050 did not include the biggest carbon polluters – China, the United States, India, Russia and Japan.

Most of the nations who made the pledge don’t emit that much carbon dioxide, and the UN’s special envoy to the summit, Luis Alfonso de Alba, conceded that the total emissions from the 77 pledges total far less than half the globe’s heat-trapping gases.

“We have reason to not claim success if you want,” de Alba said at a post-summit press conference, “but we recognise how important the process has been for those countries that are leading and committed to deliver.”

De Alba did, however, classify as a victory President Donald Trump’s brief presence at the summit after the American president had said he would not attend.

“Having the president of the United States in the room I think, it was a very positive signal,” de Alba said.

Meanwhile, businesses and charities also got in on the climate act, at times even going bigger than some of the major nations whose leaders met at the United Nations.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced on Monday that his foundation, along with the World Bank and some European governments, would provide $790 million to 300 million small farmers across the globe adapt to climate change.

The Gates foundation would foot $310 million of that.

“The world can still prevent the absolute worst effects of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing new technologies and sources of energy,” Gates said. “But the effects of rising temperatures are already under way.”

And, while presidents and premiers talked about what they hoped to do within their own borders, French President Emmanuel Macron reminded his colleagues that they need to include climate change in their trade and finance policies.

Macron said countries should not import goods that increase carbon pollution nor fund polluting plants in other countries.

He also begged other nations to increase their pledges to the Green Climate Fund, which helps poorer nation with climate issues. France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Denmark and Sweden have recently doubled their pledges.