Dubai, 1 December 2023 (dpa/MIA) - UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged global leaders on Friday to cure the "sickness" that climate change has wrought upon the planet as the COP28 conference got under way for a second day in Dubai.

"Polar ice and glaciers are vanishing before our eyes, causing havoc the world over: From landslides and floods, to rising seas," Guterres told delegates at the UN's annual climate summit.

"But this is just one symptom of the sickness bringing our climate to its knees - a sickness only you, global leaders, can cure," he added.

He warned that global warming was "busting budgets, ballooning food prices, upending energy markets, and feeding a cost-of-living crisis."

Summit participants included presidents, prime ministers, experts, activists and fossil fuel lobbyists.

According to the UN, this year's COP28 climate talks hosted by the United Arab Emirates are the largest ever with around 97,000 registered participants.

This makes the Dubai conference almost twice as large as last year in Egypt, which hosted some 50,000 participants.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, "Global emissions must peak by 2025. We must phase out fossil fuels and we must reduce methane emissions."

She called for a global tripling of renewable energy and doubling of energy efficiency by 2030.

"There is no doubt: the future of energy will be clean, it will be affordable, and it will be homegrown," she stated.

The top EU official also advocated for an expansion of carbon markets to "put a price" on all climate-damaging emissions. At present, just 23% of global emissions are covered by carbon pricing instruments, she argued.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told his fellow leaders, "We don't have two planet Earths," underscoring the urgent need to make faster progress and protect the "unique species of humanity."

Brazil, home to most of the Amazon rainforest, is ready to lead the way in climate protection, he told the COP28 conference.

He said Brazil had already significantly reduced deforestation in the Amazon and aimed to eliminate it by 2030. However, it is still a long way off from reaching this goal.

Brazil will host the COP30 UN Climate Conference in 2025 and is already insisting on a more ambitious course of action in Dubai, partly because it suffers from extreme droughts itself.

Britain's King Charles III urged participants to make COP28 a "critical turning point towards genuine transformational action."

"The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth," Charles stressed on the second day of the event, which runs until December 12.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday also called for more determination in phasing out coal.

The G7 group of industrialized nations should set an example and commit to phasing out coal before the end of the decade, Macron said. Rich countries should further help developing nations phase out coal, he argued.

A key focus of the talks is how to balance efforts by rich nations - whose economies were built upon fossil fuels - and those required by developing economies, many of which are bearing the brunt of climate change.

Developing countries need a fair share of the carbon budget, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi argued, pointing to the need for technology and finance to combat climate change.

"We must rise above self-interest and transfer technology to others," he said. "Mother Earth looks to us for protecting her future."

Modi reiterated India’s ambitious national commitments – to reduce emissions by 45% by 2030, compared to 2005; to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in the country's energy basket to 50% by 2030; and to become carbon neutral by 2070.

Likewise, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for an equal distribution of financial and technological resources. Ankara's ambitious emissions targets required substantial input, he said.

"It is critical that we have more equitable access to climate finance resources and opportunities for technology transfer," Erdoğan noted.

Funding pledges rolled in on the second day of talks, with COP28 host the United Arab Emirates announcing a new $30 billion investment fund to channel more capital into climate projects in developing countries.

Together with private donors, it is hoped that $250 billion will be mobilized by 2030. The fund will focus on transitions to green energy and new technologies that offer solutions to the climate crisis.

COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber, who heads the UAE's state-owned oil and gas company ADNOC, will chair the supervisory board of the fund, which will be called ALTÉRRA.

A major topic at the two-week conference is how global financial flows can be quickly redirected from oil, coal and gas towards renewable energies, especially in developing countries where financing for projects can be tough to secure.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pledged €20 million ($22 million) to a new fund to compensate particularly vulnerable countries for damage caused by climate change.

On Thursday, Germany and the United Arab Emirates each pledged $100 million to the fund. Britain, the United States and Japan also made smaller financial pledges.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared his proposal to start a Climate Club of countries committed to addressing global warming to be fully functional, with 36 members.

"We are ready to go!" Scholz said in Dubai.

Countries in the Climate Club come from all regions of the world but are "united by the shared conviction that climate change is the greatest challenge of the 21st century," Scholz said.

"United also by a common goal: to de-carbonize industries and to decouple growth from emissions," he added.

The group will exchange technology, goods and know-how while jointly developing strategies and standards for a carbon-free industrial sector, Scholz said.

In addition to the G7 countries, the Climate Club's 36 members also include Indonesia, Egypt, South Korea, Chile, Switzerland, Ukraine, Kenya, Mozambique and Kazakhstan.

The wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine were also in the spotlight, with numerous bilateral conversations taking place on the sidelines among the 170 world leaders attending the climate summit.

Speeches had been planned by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Photo: dpa