Dubai: A closely watched two-day summit-level meeting of the ongoing U.N. climate talks in Dubai ended Saturday.

On the second day of the meeting, Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Kausea Natano said in a speech that there is no time to waste as sea levels have already started rising in the Pacific island nation due to climate change.

The focus of the 28th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP28, is whether participating countries will be able to agree to strengthen greenhouse gas reduction targets during the conference, which is set to run through Dec. 12, in order to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of curbing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or less above pre-industrial levels.

On the first day of the summit-level meeting Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a phaseout of fossil fuel, which emits huge amounts of greenhouse gases.

According to Natano, 40 percent of land in Tuvalu’s capital is covered with seawater at high tide.

On Thursday, when COP28 began, participating countries decided an operational framework for a fund aimed at supporting measures in developing countries, including Tuvalu, to deal with loss and damage from climate change.

Japan announced a plan to contribute 10 million dollars to the fund. Other countries followed, including the United Arab Emirates, the chair of COP28, which offered to provide 100 million dollars.

At Saturday’s session of the summit-level meeting, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said his country will provide 25 million dollars to the fund and will triple its financial contribution to climate change measures by 2026.

JIJI Press