Israel’s assault on Gaza continues the day after a summit agreement on a long-sought rehabilitation fund.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged world leaders at the COP28 climate summit to plan for a future without fossil fuels, saying there is no other way to curb global warming.

A day after COP28 President Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber suggested continued use of fossil fuels, Guterres said: “We cannot save a burning planet with a fossil fuel fire hose.”

“The 1.5 degree limit is only possible if we finally stop burning all fossil fuels. Don’t reduce. Don’t let up,” he said Friday, pointing to emerging technologies to capture and store carbon emissions.

The competing visions highlighted the difficulty of U.N. climate negotiations in the oil-producing United Arab Emirates, where disagreements over fossil fuels, disagreements over delayed funding and geopolitical tensions over the war in Gaza threatened to keep delegates from making progress.

Climate Disaster Fund

An agreement was reached on Thursday to create a “loss and damage fund” to help poor countries deal with the effects of climate change, largely due to rich countries’ use of fossil fuels, which have accumulated a large share of the caused emissions.

While developing countries that stand to lose the most from climate change have long sought such a fund and have called on richer countries to provide aid, only $700 million has been committed to the fund. Poor countries had said $100 billion was needed.

A member from a developing country on the summit’s main advisory board also resigned on Friday after reports that the host, the United Arab Emirates, would use the event to secure commercial contracts for further oil and gas production.

“These actions undermine the integrity of the COP presidency and the entire process,” Hilda Heine, former president of the low-lying, climate-vulnerable Marshall Islands, said in a resignation letter.

A spokesman for al-Jaber, who is also head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, denied the reports and said he was “extremely disappointed” by the resignation.

Anger over Gaza war

Some world leaders took to the podium Friday and criticized Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, breaking an unspoken agreement to stay away from politics at U.N. climate summits.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erodgan and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza in their speeches, while an Israeli official said the military was abiding by international law and intended to destroy Hamas.

“South Africa is appalled by the horrific tragedy unfolding in Gaza. The war against the innocent people of Palestine is a war crime that must end now,” Ramaphosa said.

“As we see in this region, conflict causes great suffering and great emotions,” Guterres said in a statement on Friday. “We just received news that bombs are exploding again in Gaza.”

“We are all here together, the whole world together, to fight climate change, and actually we are negotiating what?” asked Hadeel Ikhmais, a climate expert at the Palestinian Authority. “What are we negotiating in the midst of genocide?”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog was scheduled to give a speech on Friday but skipped out after other leaders criticized Israel’s heavy bombing of the Gaza Strip, which Colombian President Gustavo Petro called “genocide and barbarism against the Palestinian people.”