Guterres comments on climate woes as COP27 begins

Earth's warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before, the World Meteorological Organization warned Sunday as world leaders started gathering for international climate negotiations. Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General said COP27 must be the place to rebuild trust and re-establish the ambition needed to avoid driving our planet over the climate cliff.

Temperatures are on course to rise by as much as 2.8 degrees, with the present policies in place by the end of the century. And that means our planet is on course for reaching tipping points. And that will make climate chaos irreversible and forever bake in catastrophic temperature rise.

  In short, COP27 must lay the foundations for much faster, bolder climate action now and in these crucial decades when the global climate fight will be won or lost. We need all nations and all people on board in these make or break next years, starting at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.

In his speech, Guterres recalled travelling to Pakistan and witnessing "one third of the country under water."The United Nations' weather agency said that sea level rise in the past decade was double what it was in the 1990s and since January 2020 has jumped at a higher rate than that.