The Latest | UN Climate Summit

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — European officials insisted Saturday that a deal at U.N. climate talks should include a commitment to keep the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) target of the 2015 Paris agreement alive.

“We need to get a deal on 1.5 degrees. We need strong wording on mitigation and that’s what we’re going to push,” said Ireland’s Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan, who is also the European lead negotiator on loss and damage. Mitigation is climate-speak for cutting emissions.

German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan also called for keeping the “1.5 degree in sight,” to be able to “to keep the losses and the damages in check.”

Romina Pourmokhtari, Sweden’s climate minister added that “science says that we’re in a rush and that has to be represented in the negotiations that we have."

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A group of states known as the High Ambition Coalition, including the U.K. and Germany, has urged for an agreement to be reached on having a key warming goal part of the final document at COP27, the U.N. climate talks in Egypt.

“We come together to say that we must emerge from COP 27 with a package of outcomes that keeps 1.5 alive and protects the world’s vulnerable,” said Marshall Islands' climate envoy Kristina Stege.

Stege said commitments made at the summit need to be “grounded” in science. Climate scientists have warned that if the earth warms more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) climate disasters would significantly worsen.

“This COP decision must put the world on a path to phasing out all fossil fuels and an urgent just transition to renewables,” she added.

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