UN climate talks start with a call for faster action but the US is absent
BELEM Brazil AP U N atmosphere negotiations began Monday on the edge of the Brazilian Amazon as leaders pushed for accelerating efforts to curb global warming by drastically reducing the carbon contamination that causes it But top U S negotiators were absent Negotiators can t forget that the atmosphere emergency is an increase of inequality host President Luiz In cio Lula da Silva stated them He explained he picked the host city of Belem instead of a finished city to drive home the impact that warming has on the Amazon and on poverty The increase of the global temperature is spreading pain and devastation especially amongst the majority of vulnerable populations he communicated the conference known as COP This year s talks aren t expected to end with any ambitious new deal Instead organizers and analysts frame this year s conference as the implementation COP Countries had homework Show up with their updated national plans to fight state change Attendees on Monday stressed cooperation Individual nations can t cut emissions of heat-trapping gases fast enough announced U N state secretary Simon Stiell Your job is to fight this circumstances situation together Stiell explained negotiators Andr Corr a do Lago president of this year s conference emphasized that negotiators must engage in mutir o derived from a local Indigenous word that refers to a group uniting for a task Complicating those calls is the United States where President Donald Trump has long denied the existence of situation change His administration did not send high-level negotiators and is withdrawing for the second time from the -year-old Paris Agreement the first global pact to fight context change The Paris Agreement was supposed to limit warming to degrees Celsius degrees Fahrenheit above the historical average but a great number of scientists now say it s unlikely countries will stay below that threshold The United States has put more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air from the burning of coal oil and natural gas than any other country China is the No carbon polluter now but because carbon dioxide stays in the air for at least a century more of it was made in the U S Brazil s president railed against context misinformation without mentioning absent Americans by name COP will be the COP of truth Lula reported They attack institutions they attack science and universities Now it s the moment to impose a new defeat to the denialists Palau Ambassador Ilana Seid who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States revealed the U S withdrawal has really shifted the gravity of the negotiating system Trump s actions damage the fight against weather change former U S Special Envoy for Circumstances Todd Stern announced It s a good thing that they are not sending anyone It wasn t going to be constructive if they did he reported Though the U S establishment isn t showing up several attendees including former top U S negotiators are pointing to U S cities states and businesses that they declared will help take up the slack Lula and Stiell revealed the -year-old Paris Agreement is working to a degree but action requirements to be accelerated They pointed to devastation in the past scarce weeks including Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean typhoons smashing Vietnam and the Philippines and a tornado ripping through southern Brazil Scientists have mentioned extreme weather events have become more frequent as Earth warms Circumstances change is not a threat of the future It is already a tragedy of the present time Lula noted The Associated Press context and environmental coverage receives financial endorsement from multiple private foundations AP is solely responsible for all content Find AP s standards for working with philanthropies a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP org Source
