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As Jamaica faces the most powerful hurricane in its history, former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres told Channel 4 News it was a stark example of how a warming world is now making storms more powerful – and more unfair. Warming oceans, she said, were “turbo-charging” extreme weather. The storm that tore through Jamaica reached Category 5 because sea temperatures were three degrees higher than normal. “Climate change doesn’t produce hurricanes, it makes them more and more powerful,” Figueres told Channel 4 News during an interview with Jackie Long. She called it a devastating injustice, especially since the developing nations that have contributed least to the crisis were suffering the most. “They have to find 80% of the cost of rebuilding, recovering, and increasing resilience from their own pocket,” she said. “That is the unfairness of climate change.” The Paris Agreement that she helped broker a decade ago aimed to keep global warming well below 2°C. But current pledges put the world on track for around 2.5°C. “Every tenth of a degree really, really counts,” she said. Despite political backlash in places like Washington, she said the private sector and cities were stepping up. “The fate of these nations is not one we can play with.” – Christiana Figueres “We see them now taking the lead in the absence of the lead of many countries and governments, especially in the global north,” she said With COP30 set to begin next week, she said she believes that progress now depends on focusing less on politics and more on real, economic change. Even after years of warnings, Figueres still calls herself a “gentle optimist.” “We need to be,” she said. “Because the fate of these nations is not one we can play with.”
