Martin Frick, director at the UN World Food Programme, urged urgent progress on climate protection. “We still have six to seven years to turn things around on climate change,” Frick told the German news agency dpa on the sidelines of the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai. “When we reach the tipping point, there will be severe and irreversible consequences.”
He added that global greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise. “This is suicide by installments.”
Frick said that, when it comes to food security, there is no production or distribution system that is yet resilient to climate change. “But that could change quickly because of the climate crisis, leading to real shortages.” The conference is scheduled to conclude on Tuesday.
“No matter how much money we spend on climate damage compensation and supporting countries to cope with climate change, if we cannot cut greenhouse gas emissions drastically, it will never be enough,” Frick said.
He said that financial pledges, which are often announced at climate summits, are valuable. However, they can also be ignored.
“If the financial pledges from climate conferences going back 28 years had become reality, we would be living in a world where no one is hungry or poor,” he said. Azerbaijan is set to host the climate conference next year.
