US president tells world leaders they ‘can no longer plead ignorance’ and that time is running out
So what happened at Cop on Friday?
The US president, Joe Biden, addressed the conference, asking world leaders to “do more”.
He used the speech to announce a number of measures, including a plan to slash emissions of methane in the US, support for new early warning systems for extreme weather disasters in Africa, and a deal to back new solar and wind projects in Egypt in return for the country decommissioning gas power plants and cutting its emissions.
The speech was briefly interrupted by youth and Indigenous activists from the US, calling on Biden to stop pushing fossil fuel extraction.
Grant Shapps, the UK business secretary, said the UK would continue to use and develop North Sea oil and gas as long as it generated lower carbon dioxide emissions than importing gas from overseas.
The US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told Cop27: “We have left incrementalism in the dust, this is about transformation,” adding that she hoped Cop27 would “help save the world for the children”.
The Occidental Petroleum CEO, Vicki Hollub, said people who call for the end of the oil and gas industry “have no clue what that would mean” and refused to say whether she accepted her company’s role in climate disasters.
An analysis of delegates found there had been an “explosion” in fossil fuel lobbyists attending the climate summit this year, with 636 in attendance, a rise of more than 25% since Cop26 in Glasgow.
Gas producers and their financial backers have been accused of using Cop27 as an opportunity to rebrand natural gas as a transition fuel rather than a fossil fuel.
Medics from across the world staged a protest to highlight how climate carnage is killing their patients, including performing CPR on an inflatable globe.
