Nearly 100 heads of state and government are meeting for two days in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, facing calls to deepen emissions cuts and financially back developing countries already devastated by the effects of rising temperatures.

"Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish," Guterres told the UN COP27 summit. 

"It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact," Guterres said, urging richer polluting nations to come to the aid of poorer countries least responsible for the emission of heat-trapping gases.

Nations worldwide are coping with increasingly intense natural disasters that have taken thousands of lives this year alone and cost billions of dollars – from devastating floods in Nigeria and Pakistan to droughts in the United States and Africa and unprecedented heat waves across three continents.

"We have seen one catastrophe after another," said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. "As soon as we tackle one catastrophe another one arises – wave after wave of suffering and loss.

"Is it not high time to put an end to all this suffering?"

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