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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is set on Wednesday to host a climate meeting marred at its outset by the absence of speakers from the world\u2019s top two emitters, China and the United States.<\/p>\n
Despite increasing extreme weather events and record-shattering global temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and fossil fuel companies reap handsome profits.<\/p>\n
Guterres has thus billed the \u201cClimate Ambition Summit<\/a>\u201d as a \u201cno-nonsense\u201d forum where leaders or cabinet ministers will announce specific actions that deliver on their commitments under the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n The bar for making the podium was set high, with the UN chief making clear that only leaders who had made concrete plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse emissions would be allowed to speak.<\/p>\n After receiving more than 100 applications to take part, the UN finally released a list<\/a> on Tuesday night of 41 speakers which did not include China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan or India.<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow, I will welcome credible first movers and doers to our Climate Ambition Summit,\u201d Guterres said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Several major leaders didn\u2019t bother making the trip to New York for this year\u2019s UN General Assembly, including President Xi Jinping of China and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak from the United Kingdom, who said he was too busy.<\/p>\n