Climate talks must wrench attention from competition

This year’s U.N. climate conference must wrench global leaders’ attention back to global warming as multiple crises, including a looming global recession and war in Europe.
More than 100 world leaders gathered on Monday in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, for the start of the two-week climate talks against a backdrop of war in Ukraine, economic downturn, rampant inflation and a European energy crisis.
Of the nearly 200 countries that agreed at last year’s climate summit to ratchet up the ambition on their emissions-cutting goals, only about 30, including Australia, Indonesia and South Korea, have done so.
Countries’ national climate pledges put the world on track to warm by 2.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, overshooting the 1.5C threshhold beyond which scientists say climate change impacts will significantly worsen.