THE United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and Brazil joined forces today to push for an international agreement to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

The three nations are the former and future hosts of the United Nations climate summits.

Sultan Al Jaber, Emirati president of last year’s Cop28 negotiations, said it would form a “troika” to focus on ensuring that more ambitious CO2-cutting pledges are made ahead of a deadline at the Cop30 summit to be held in 2025 in Belem, Brazil. 

Azerbaijan will host this year’s UN conference in November.

Mr Jaber said: “The troika helps ensure we have the collaboration and continuity required to keep the ‘north star’ of 1.5°C in sight — from Baku to Belem and beyond.”

“We are committed to leveraging our strength as a bridge builder between the developed and developing world as host of Cop29, to accelerate efforts to keep 1.5°C in reach,” said president-designate Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s minister of ecology and natural resources.

Nearly 200 governments signed up to the 2015 Paris climate deal to phase out fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy in the second half of the century, an attempt to cap the rise in global temperature to 1.5°C.