With their revenues burgeoning from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, fossil fuel companies around the globe should be required to put some of their billions in profits into the fight against climate change, key world leaders said at the U.N. 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Monday.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “asking that all governments tax the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies. Let’s redirect that money to people struggling with rising food and energy prices and to countries suffering loss and damage cause by the climate crisis.”

“Loss and damage can no longer be swept under the rug,” Guterres said. “It is a moral imperative. It is a fundamental question of international solidarity and climate justice.”

The issue, officially on the agenda in Sharm el-Sheikh, has been a flashpoint between developed and developing countries almost since the Paris Agreement was signed at COP21 in 2015.

A “clear, time-bound roadmap” on loss and damage is needed, Guterres said, which will be “reflective of the scale and urgency of the challenge [and] deliver effective institutional arrangements for financing.”

He also called for a universal early warning system to alert countries to extreme weather events intensified by climate change.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said that “non-state actors and the stakeholders — the oil and gas companies and those that facilitate them — need to be brought into a special convocation” between now and next year’s COP28 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“How do companies make [billions] in profits in the last three months and not expect to contribute at least 10 cents in every dollar of profit to a loss-and-damage fund?” Mottley said. “This is what our people expect.”

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said the trillions of dollars needed for climate finance, including loss and damage, “can only be provided by the private sector … by unlocking private access to private capital” and revamping the world banking system.

He also called for a halt to new fossil fuel development — the “dash for gas” — in response to the fuel shortages caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “At a time of turbulence in the global energy markets, the wealthy nations of the world should not confuse the short term with the long term,” Gore said. They “should not be fooled by the absolute need to backfill the shortage of fossil energy caused by the cruel and evil war launched by Russia in Ukraine as an excuse for locking in long-term commitments to even more dependence and addiction on fossil fuels.”

The second day of COP27 opened with videos of floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters exacerbated by climate change and the catastrophic impact these events are having on people’s lives. With a focus on Africa and developing countries in the southern hemisphere in general, speakers called for immediate, concrete action, laying out the key themes that will likely dominate the conference over the next two weeks.

One after the other, they spoke of the need to relieve the suffering caused by climate change with a global agenda that prioritizes steep emission reductions and recognizes the responsibility of developed countries to provide more equitable support for developing countries by reforming international finance.

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

As the first to speak on Monday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi began by telling leaders that people around the world were watching them, hoping for “an environment healthier for development, for life, for workers and more respectful of the diminishing resources of the planet.”

“They want a rapid, concrete implementation of genuine, practical, concrete actions to reduce emissions; to reinforce the ability to adapt; to guarantee the funding necessary for developing countries who today are suffering more than others the consequences of these crises,” he said.

While not providing details, el-Sisi said his country is “determined to focus on and increase investment in key green areas.”

He also emphasized the need for trust-building between developed and developing countries, saying the priorities of developing countries of Africa “must be taken into account. … This will inspire trust in our ability to achieve our goals. That trust, that mutual or multilateral trust will be the best guarantee of our success, the best guarantee of progress and of achieving our goals.”

El-Sisi also appealed for an end to the war in Ukraine.

“The entire world is suffering because of the war between Russia and Ukraine,” he said. “Please allow me to say this in all respect: This war must stop, and the suffering it has caused must finish.”

Solidarity or ‘Suicide Pact’

Secretary-General Guterres, an outspoken advocate for climate action, warned that with “greenhouse gas emissions and global temperatures continu[ing] to rise … and our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.”

“We are on a highway to climate hell, with our foot still on the accelerator,” he said, calling for the phasing out of coal in developed countries by 2030 “and everywhere else by 2040.”

While acknowledging the devastating impacts of the war in Ukraine and other global crises, Guterres said, “We cannot accept that our attention is not focused on climate change. It is unacceptable, outrageous and self-defeating to put it on the back burner. Indeed, many of today’s conflicts are linked with growing climate chaos.”

To keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the target set in the Paris Agreement, Guterres proposed “a historic pact between developed and developing economies and especially between developed and emerging economies — a climate solidarity pact … in which all countries make an extra effort to reduce emissions this decade in line with 1.5 degrees; a pact in which wealthier countries and international financial institutions provide financial and technical assistance to help emerging economies speed their own renewable energy transition.

“The two largest economies, the United States and China, have a particular responsibility to join efforts to make this pact a reality,” he said. “This is our only hope of meeting our climate goals. … It is either a climate solidarity pact, or a collective suicide pact.”

UAE Pledges Green Investments, Continued Oil Production

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the UAE, embodies the complexities of climate action in a world still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Taking the dais at COP27, he spoke of his country’s efforts to balance being “a responsible supplier” of oil and gas with “lowering carbon emissions emanating from this sector.”

“Geology has its own logic,” he said, noting that the UAE has “among the least carbon-intensive oil and gas around the world.” He said his country would continue to produce fossil fuels for as long as the world needs them.

But the UAE is also diversifying its economy with new renewable resources and clean energy and has set a 2050 target for carbon neutrality, Al Nahyan said. The country recently announced a new partnership with the U.S. aimed at providing $100 billion in investments “to produce 100 GW of clean energy in various parts of the world.”

Next year’s COP in Dubai will focus “on supporting the implementation of the outcomes of the previous COPs,” Al Nahyan said. “We will also focus on engaging everybody, all stakeholders, with adequate representation of women and also making sure that youth from around the world will [take part] and also further promote their enthusiasm for sustainable solutions.”

Al Gore Preaches

Gore, the former vice president turned climate activist, came to Sharm el-Sheikh ready to preach.

Humanity is facing a choice, he said, between blessings and curses; life and death. “Today we can continue the culture of death that surrounds our addiction to fossil fuels by digging up dead lifeforms from eons ago and burning them recklessly in ways that create more death,” Gore said.

Continued global warming poses a threat to democratic governments, he said. “Experts are predicting as many as 1 billion climate migrants crossing international borders in the balance of this century. Think of the millions that are crossing borders now and the xenophobia and authoritarian populism that is caused by large surges of refugees, “ he said.

“Then imagine, if you will, what a billion climate refugees would do. It would end the possibilities of self-governance,” he said.

But Gore also sees hope in the growth and falling prices of renewable energy and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, calling it “the biggest and most ambitious climate legislation in the history of the world.”

“If we absolutely do reach true net zero, the scientists tell us temperatures will stop going up with a lag time of as little as three to five years,” he said. “And if we stay at true net zero, half of the manmade CO₂ will fall out of the atmosphere in as little as 25 to 30 years.”

Barbados PM: Faster Action Needed

Barbados’ Mottley, an advocate for island and developing nations, questioned why the world is not making faster progress on climate action.

“We’re in the country that built pyramids,” she said in her closing speech Monday. “We know what it is to remove slavery from our civilization. We know what it is to be able to find a vaccine within two years when a pandemic hits. … But the simple political will that is necessary, not just to come here and make promises, but to deliver on them and to make a definable difference in the lives of people who we have a responsibility to serve seems still not to be capable of being produced,” she said.

Her small island nation has high climate ambitions, but has been unable to deliver on them, hampered by global industrial and financial structures, Mottley said.

“Our ability to access electric cars and our ability to access batteries or photovoltaic panels are constrained by those countries that have that dominant presence and can produce for themselves,” she said. “The global south remains at the mercy of the global north on these issues.”

Interest rates for clean energy projects in developed countries are much lower than those for projects in developing countries, she said. Countries that cannot get financing for clean energy projects are often forced to depend on natural gas, she said. The multinational development banks must be changed to have “a different view to risk appetite” and “other ways to expand the lending that is available from millions to trillions,” she said.

Needed financial reforms include “natural disaster and pandemic clauses” in debt agreements, which would put a two-year pause on debt repayments so that developing countries recovering from a disaster or pandemic have “flexibility in the first two years to address issues of loss and damage,” she said.