Climate summit .. UN call to support the "Green Box" and financial promises exceeded $ 1 billion

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called on countries attending the climate summit in New York to commit to the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, revive the Green Climate Fund and commit to raising $ 100 billion a year starting in 2020.

Speaking at the opening of a summit of more than 60 world leaders, Guterres called for concrete commitments to stop fossil fuel subsidies, stop building coal-fired power plants, and move towards net emissions.

He denounced the provision of "trillions of taxpayers' money to the fossil fuel industry to boost hurricanes, spread tropical diseases and build more coal plants that are stifling our future" by some UN member states (without naming them).

Level zero
Guterres also announced that 66 countries have expressed their intention to reach net carbon dioxide emissions to zero by 2050.

For his part, the Emir of the State of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani announced during the summit his country's contribution of $ 100 million to support developing countries and least developed countries to face climate change.

Sheikh Tamim stressed that Doha aims to generate 200 megawatts of solar energy in the next two years, stressing Doha's commitment to organize the World Cup in 2022 environmentally friendly.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also said the world should abide by the Paris agreement to curb global warming.

Merkel said her country would increase funding for climate protection from $ 2.2 billion to $ 4.4 billion compared to 2014.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced that his country would inject more than $ 1.6 billion into the Green Climate Fund to help developing countries adapt and mitigate climate change.

Other European countries have also increased their contributions to the fund to increase climate finance under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Macron said in a speech at the summit.

Real will
In a video message presented at the summit, Pope Francesco also called for greater international efforts to tackle climate change, asking whether there was indeed "real political will" to allocate greater human, financial and technological materials to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.

US President Donald Trump surprised the audience at the summit when he participated for a few minutes, although he had not announced his participation in advance.

Trump did not make a speech, only sit for a few minutes in the public hall, where he listened and applauded the speech of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

More than 60 world leaders are taking part in the climate summit to give fresh impetus to the Paris agreement, which the United States emerged from after Trump's arrival in the White House.

The climate summit is being convened at the invitation of Guterres to implement the outcome of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which was approved by 200 countries as the first global action plan to mitigate the effects of climate change.