Welcome back to Cheddar News is closing bell. Everyone
the U. N. Climate summit known as cop
27 or the conference of parties 27 kicking off sunday
and Sharm el Sheikh. Egypt thousands of world and
business leaders coming together to build a framework to cut
greenhouse gas emissions, address a global energy crisis and
provide funding for less developed nations to address climate fueled
disasters. Well, officials not mincing words about how
dire the situation is with U. N. Secretary
General Antonio Guterres speaking in no uncertain terms about the
importance of the conference. Take a look. The
two largest economies, the United States and china have
a particular responsibility to join efforts to make this project
a reality and this is our only hope of meeting
our climate goals. Humanity has a choice, cooperate
or perish. It is either a climate solidarity pact
or a collective suicide pact. Well, the type
of messaging is meant to instill a sense of urgency
on the topic to show how important the conference really
is in humanity's fight against climate change. Their four
main topics this year and they include mitigation, adaptation
, finance, and collaboration On an effort to meet
the targets outlined in the Paris agreement and limit warning
levels to well below the 2Â°C mark by the end
of the century. Well, the secretary general calling
out the U. S. And china in specific
terms as they're the two biggest economies and the two
top polluting nations in the world china accounting for some
28% of all C. 02 emissions. While the
U. S. Does make up about 15%.
So combined, they account for nearly half of all
man made emissions on the planet. In the past
year we've seen even more evidence of climate change is
disastrous effects warming waters leading to increasingly intense storms which
batter coastal communities without mercy taking lives and causing irreparable
damage to infrastructure. And so far in 2022 there
have been some 29 weather disasters that have each caused
at least a billion dollars in damages. Now those
include floods that have ravaged Pakistan. Nearly 2000 people
have died there since june And the floods caused by
heavier than usual monsoon rains and melting glaciers. This
right after a severe heat wave rocked the region,
Pakistan declaring a state of emergency with the government estimating
it's lost more than$40 billion dollars in responding to
the ongoing crisis. Now on the other side,
droughts are becoming more intense and more common across the
globe. And that includes a historic drought in the
Western United States was started some 22 years ago.
Has put the Colorado River at its lowest level ever
recorded, leading to water restrictions and causing the destruction
of crops and farmland, threatening the global food supply
. Well, we can't forget the drought in Somalia
the worst in recorded history at risk of becoming a
famine, millions facing food and water shortages and Children
dying in growing numbers even in refugee camps or two
thirds of women and Children suffer from malnutrition. The
U. N. Climate pact has been called the
world's last best hope of stemming the tide of climate
catastrophe. But for the average person it could seem
a distant and even inaccessible event. Cheddar news,
senior reporter Chloe anello recently went to new york's Washington
square park to get a gauge of how people feel
about the conference and the climate fight overall. Take
a look. Are you familiar with cop 27?
No, no. You have to let me explain
that to me. I'm not aware. I have
no idea. If you had to guess what cop
27 was. What would you say? Does it
have something to do with police? Yeah. That's
one of those like um international meetings where like world
leaders meet and like figure out what they're going to
do, but then they make a deal and then
they kind of don't follow through with it. Do
you think that will be able to fix or mitigate
climate change in time to prevent catastrophic situations here on
earth? We start listening to scientists instead of politicians
. Maybe? I'm not overly confident. I don't
know. I just feel like as human beings,
we always wait until it's it's a little too late
and then we learn. I think that we will
because I think there are brilliant people and brilliant minds
that can push us forward. But the political climate
is a stumbling block to that success. No,
I don't think people really care. like our generation
just they don't really care uh greed. I think
people get used to the way that we live the
normalcy. And um I think there's also like definitely
something that's going on where like everyone just expecting someone
else to do something about it and it's we have
to all work collectively, we want to do something
. So I think we're capable of it. You
said do I think we will um that remains to
be seen. And the reason why I say that
is because I think there's a political divide and I
think that they've turned it into a political issue and
it's it's too difficult for people to have a meeting
of the minds you have to compromise and you have
to first admit that there really is a problem.
Well, it seems that the average person feels disconnected
from the global fight against climate change and policy makers
gathering and committing to goals which have little bearing on
our day to day lives. We'll know where is
the outrage more evident than on twitter. So believe
it or not, cop 27 is sponsored by the
coca cola corpora, The world's leading plastics polluter for
four years in a row, 99% of Coca Cola's
plastic bottles are made with fossil fuels like crude oil
, coal and gas. And it's increased its use
of new plastics by 3% since 2019. That's 3.4
million tons of plastics a year now, climate activists
say the fact that it is sponsoring the most important
climate conference in the world is greenwashing an active,
deceiving consumers into believing that a company's products are environmentally
friendly. Well, there's no shortage of things to
talk about at this year's cop 27 so do be
sure to tune in every day this week. Same
time 3 40 PM Eastern as we talk to activists
, scientists and policymakers about the global fight to save
our planet.