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The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The world is racing "on the highway that leads straight to climate hell with its foot pressed on the accelerator". He didn't mince words the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, on the opening day of the United Nations Climate Conference which is being held this year in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, to define the gravity of the situation facing the planet and give meaning the urgency of the actions to be taken.Looming in the background are the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis, the rising cost of living and growing global tensions. “We need a climate solidarity pact between developed and emerging economies:either they work together to make a historic deal that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and put the world on a low-carbon path, or we will have failure, which will mean climate collapse and catastrophe,” Guterres added.“It is...

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley spoke passionately to the United Nations General Assembly in September about the mounting debt many developing countries are shouldering and its increasing impact on their ability to thrive. The average debt for low- and middle-income countries, excluding China, reached 42% of their gross national income in 2020, up from 26% in 2011. For countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the annual payments just to service that debt averaged 30% of their total exports. At the same time, these countries are facing a “triple crisis of climate change, of pandemic and indeed now the conflict that is leading to the inflationary pressures that lead regrettably to people taking circumstances into their own hands,” Mottley said. Rising borrowing costs coupled with high inflation and slow economic growth have left developing countries like hers in a difficult position when it comes to climate change. High debt payments mean countries have...