The person is Madeleine Cuff.
The 27th Conference of the Parties will be held in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt.
REUTERS' Sayed Sheasha.
The next round of UN climate talks will take place in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh.
A flurry of sobering reports released last week reminded the world that greenhouse gas concentrations are rising and hopes of delivering on the promises of the Paris Agreement are fading fast.
The atmospheric concentrations of planet-warming carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane hit a record high in 2021.
About 66 per cent of global warming since 1750 has been caused by atmospheric CO2. Researchers started keeping records 40 years ago.
The secretary-general of the WMO said in a press release that we are heading in the wrong direction.
Extreme heatwaves, storm surge and devastating flooding to many parts of the world have been caused by an atmosphere filled with warming gases and will only get worse in the years to come.
An assessment by an international coalition of scientists of 35 "planetary vital signs" found that 16 of them are at record extremes. The team warned that humanity is facing aclimate emergency.
The world is still on track to blow through temperature goals set under the Paris Agreement despite warnings, according to two UN reports.
According to an analysis by the UN's climate change secretariat, carbon emissions will fall by 3.6 per cent by the year 2030. The Paris Agreement requires a 43 per cent drop in temperature to be met.
The UN concluded that the plans put the world on course for warming of 2.5C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Climate scientists warn of the consequences of a warming above 1.5C.
The UN's climate lead said that the science is clear and the goals under the Paris Agreement are also clear. We are not close to the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on a path to a 1.5C world.
The same conclusion was reached by a report from the UNEP. Current national plans to cut carbon emissions leave no credible pathway to limit global warming to 1.5C, with a 2.6C rise by the end of the century being the most probable outcome.
The last UN climate summit in Glasgow, UK, ended with a deal that nations would submit bolder proposals to cut emissions within a year. Since then, just 26 countries have come forward with updated plans, with the new pledges shaving less than 1 per cent off projected 2030.
There is a huge gap between where the current promises are and what we actually need. According to the report, not a lot has happened since last year, and if we are serious about this, we need to change quickly.
At a time when the global economy is under strain and goodwill between nations is in short supply, the task of persuading countries to slash emissions faster in the short term is difficult.
In order to drive real action on the ground in countries around the world, the summit will be focused on implementation. It means drawing up plans to close coal plants early and cut methane emissions as quickly as possible.
Tensions are high. High-income countries have been accused of backsliding on their promises for climate finance that would help lower-income nations move forward with emissions cuts.
The issue of "loss and damage", which would see richer countries pay for the damage done to vulnerable nations due to climate impacts, looks set to be a major flash point. Many countries want to see cash on the table at the conference, but the US has agreed to talks.
Developing countries want this on the agenda but developed countries are afraid because it opens the door to questions of liability and compensation.
Markets are moving in the right direction. The IEA said that demand for fossil fuels will peak in 15 years.
If efforts to phase out fossil fuels aren't stepped up, demand for coal and oil will decline within a few years, according to the IEA. From the end of this decade, gas demand is expected to stop.
It would be the first time since the industrial revolution that GDP and fossil fuel use were not tied together. According to the IEA, global emissions from the energy sector are expected to peak by the year 2025.
It said that countries need to do more to speed up the energy transition or risk a runaway rate of warming.
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