During a high-level summit on the climate crisis attended by world leaders, UN Secretary General António Guterres sternly warned: “Humanity has opened the gates to hell”.
“Horrendous heat is having horrendous effects. Distraught farmers watching crops carried away by floods. Sweltering temperatures spawning disease,” he said in a speech to open the Climate Ambition Summit, happening alongside the UN General Assembly in New York.
“Climate action is dwarfed by the scale of the challenge,” he added, warning that if nothing changes we are heading “towards a dangerous and unstable world.”
The one-day conference, which comes as the globe struggles with devastating floods and fires, aims to increase global momentum toward reducing planet-heating pollution ahead of the UN’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai in December.
The unusual aspect of the summit on Wednesday is Guterres’ decision to limit the list of speakers to nations with what he considered to be effective and transparent climate plans and those willing to send a high-level representative.
Only 34 nations and seven non-governmental organizations secured speaking slots at the UN chief’s summit out of the nearly 200 nations that were in New York for the General Assembly.
Some of the world’s biggest polluters, such as China, India, and the United States, were noticeably absent from the speaker list, despite the fact that US climate envoy John Kerry was present.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is facing domestic backlash over plans to weaken the nation’s climate commitments, was also absent from the list.
Increasing ambitions for climate action is the summit’s goal, according to Guterres.
It has been reported that there has been “massive backsliding” on commitments, according to Selwin Hart, a special adviser to the UN Secretary-General on climate action and just transition.
In an interview with the media, he said “the countries that committed to net-zero by 2050, and to the 1.5-degree goal of the Paris Agreement, they’re expanding fossil fuel licensing at a time when science tells us this is totally incompatible with this 1.5-degree goal.”
Guterres urged developed nations to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, which would mean removing from the atmosphere at least as much pollution that contributes to global warming as they produce, at least ten years earlier than most current commitments.
Additionally, he urged nations to commit to timelines for the phase-out of fossil fuel emissions and to significantly increase financial aid to low- and middle-income nations so they can quickly transition to clean energy and make investments in climate resilience measures so they can better withstand the increasingly severe extreme weather events.
According to Guterres, “We are decades behind. We must make up time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels.”
Source-CNN
