Pelosi: China needs to work with US on Climate
Newslooks- SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP)
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said China needs to work with the U.S. on climate talks, despite the two countries’ differences.
“They know for the good of their own people that they’ve got to reduce the smog and increase their participation. And if they don’t want to do something any excuse will do,” Pelosi told reporters after speaking at a side event at the U.N. climate talks, known as COP27.
“But I do believe that we should be working with the Chinese,” she added. “I take second place to no one in concern about the human rights violations, their trade violations, their proliferation of weapons of mass destruction over time. But I do believe that we must work with them on climate.”
Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has crimped natural gas supplies to Europe and sped the push to expand gas sources from elsewhere, shouldn’t overshadow the transition to renewable energy, Pelosi said.
“I do think that what I’ve heard from all the countries in the EU and NATO and all the rest is about diversification,” Pelosi said. “We cannot have Putin’s invasion of Ukraine be an excuse to abandon our good policy in terms of saving the planet.”
Pelosi also said developing countries struggling to transition to green energy can use new technology to “leapfrog over mistakes made by all of us in our development in order to get to the desired place much faster.”
Environmental groups are complaining of an increase in the number of fossil fuel lobbyists who are registered for this year’s U.N. climate talks in Egypt.
Global Witness, Corporate Accountability and Corporate Europe Observatory said Thursday that they have counted 636 people linked to fossil fuel companies on the meeting’s provisional list of participants.
This is an increase of more than 25% compared to the 503 fossil fuel lobbyists counted at last year’s climate talks in Glasgow, they said.
Some of the 636 participants identified as being affiliated with fossil fuel companies are registered as members of 29 national delegations such as the United Arab Emirates and Russia, they said.
“Tobacco lobbyists wouldn’t be welcome at health conferences, arms dealers can’t promote their trade at peace conventions,” the groups said. “Those perpetuating the world’s fossil fuel addiction should not be allowed through the doors of a climate conference.”
A group of climate activists gathered at the U.N. climate summit’s main venue to protest against fuel fossil companies and other polluters.
The activists chanted slogans like, “kick polluters out, let people in” and sang and danced at the venue’s entrance.
Speakers at the protests blamed big polluters for destructive weather events, like flooding drought and rising see levels.
“We stand here today to think of our people, to think of our planet,” one of the speakers said. “We have to reclaim our rights now.”
Cansin Leylim, an activist from the 350.org climate group, criticized soft drink giant Coca Cola’s sponsorship of the event as it is a major contributor to plastic pollution.
“The fact that Coca Cola is sponsoring the climate talks is, frankly, a joke,” she said, adding that fossil fuel lobbyists at the summit have surpassed “the combined delegations of the small island states, the developing countries.”
Protests at COP27 are rare and small and all have taken place inside the venue’s Blue Zone, which is considered a U.N. territory.
A few dozen activists held a silent protest early Thursday at the U.N. climate conference venue to highlight human rights violations globally, particularly in Egypt, the host country.
The protesters held signs that read, “No climate justice without human rights.”
Most of them wore white T-shirts and had their hands tied or a piece of cloth in their mouths, to highlight the plight of jailed activists especially in Egypt where many pro-democracy activists have been behind bars for years.
“We’re in solidarity with Egyptian prisoners of conscience right now,” said Dipiti Bhatnagar, an activist with the Friends of the Earth International, a network of environmental organizations. “All human rights of everyone must be respected in order to achieve the dream of climate justice.”
Another environmental activist from Tanzania, Shamim Navil Nyanda, said human rights should be prioritized at the climate talks.
“We need to put human rights first. We need to look after humanity, and together we can protect the planet,” she said.
