The UN’s climate change chief has told Sky News there has never been such a “tense” and “divisive” geopolitical environment before a UN climate change summit as there is right now.

Speaking just a few days before the COP27 summit begins in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh on Sunday, Simon Stiell said the situation is “distracting” governments from tackling the climate crisis.

He said: “If there is one defining crisis of our time, it is climate.

“All of the other things; interest rates, cost of living, even wars, come to an end – but climate change just marches on.

“We have seen distracted governments since we left Glasgow.”

Mr Stiell, whose formal title is executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told Sky News: “I don’t think there’s ever been a geopolitical environment as tense and as divisive as we have now as we enter this COP.

“Yes, the world is distracted… Sharm El-Sheikh gives us an opportunity to refocus.”

Rishi Sunak promises UK will lead climate change fight – after U-turn on attending COP27 climate summit

Major glaciers including Mount Kilimanjaro and Dolomites to disappear by 2050, UN report says

Climate change: Europe is a ‘live picture of a warming world’, with temperatures rising more than twice as much as other continents

COP27 aims to increase action on reducing emissions and to increase finances for developing nations so they can adapt to the changes that are already here.

Read more: Rishi Sunak promises UK will lead on climate change fight – after COP27 U-turn

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

But the dominant issue is likely to be loss and damage, which refers to payments from rich to low-income countries in compensation for the damage inflicted by climate change.

It is something that wealthy countries like the US have been reluctant to consider, but negotiations have been ongoing behind the scenes to get the issue formally placed on the COP27 agenda for discussion.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Mr Stiell, who was previously the climate envoy for Grenada, added: “I’m not sure if I’m wearing my old hat as the minister from a small island developing state or as executive secretary of the UNFCCC, but when you look at it from a practical point of view and you look at it from a moral point of view, those that are most vulnerable, those that are suffering the greatest impacts of climate change are the ones who have contributed the least to it.

“And it is the major industrialised developed countries that carry that responsibility and for finding a resolution.

“Climate change is not waiting. Those losses… the damage that is caused by climate impacts… are being felt every single day and only increasing.”

COP27 in Egypt runs from 6-18 November.

Related posts:

‘I can’t shoot my people’: Myanmar police officers flee to India after defying military orders Bitcoin’s record-breaking surge means one man ended up paying £440m for two pizzas Thousands of women march in Australia to demand justice for sexual assault victims Cattle replaced by fish as South Sudan reels from two years of devastating floods Raging wildfires across Siberia prompt smoke warning Man who was 13 when he killed a four-year-old boy granted parole after decades behind bars Cold and wet migrants evicted from camp near Dunkirk won’t stop until they reach British shores Putin’s belligerence bears out the White House’s worst fears Al-Jazeera journalist shot and killed during Israeli raid in West Bank ‘False promises’: Thousands of Afghans left in limbo due to Home Office backlog Insolence of Russian troops in Kherson appears to confirm officers have fled, source says More women than men at the protest in Moscow – one by one, they were thrown into police vans