Friday, December 1st marked the 2nd day of the COP28 summit, where world leaders took turns sharing bold remarks and pledges.
King Charles III addressed the importance of increasing the involvement of multilateral organizations and the private sector, as well as the role of the insurance industry, and emphasized the need to increase innovative efforts in renewable energy. U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said that “Earth’s vital signs are failing”, highlighting the urgency to limit warming to 1.5C. He even went as far as saying that reducing the use of gas, oil, and coal is insufficient to limit warming, but they should rather be phased out and eliminated. Moreover, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced that Brazil vows to stop Amazon deforestation by 2030. Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, announced that India will lead the Green Credits program.
Staying on the topic of commitments and contributions, IBM and Microsoft declared their intention to fight climate change with the help of AI technologies. Additionally, the UAE pledged to aid the Global South in its climate projects and the transition to clean energy by contributing 30 billion dollars, and a document calling for phasing down fossil fuels was issued. Unfortunately, the Chinese President Xi Jinping and the US President Joe Biden, leaders of two of the biggest carbon-polluting countries, are not attending the COP28.
Despite these grand gestures, the projections of COP28 revealed that global warming will reach a concerning range of 2.4C – 2.6C.