‘Leadership’ is needed to help curb emissions
THE head of the United Nations yesterday warned a ‘leadership gap’ is undermining the world’s efforts to curb global warming.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said time is running out to cut greenhouse gas emissions and avert what could be ‘an existential threat to humanity’.
‘The clock is ticking,’ he said. ‘This is a moment of truth.’
Mr Guterres was speaking in New York at the presentation of a UN report highlighting the difference between what scientists say is needed and what countries are doing to cut the amount of greenhouse gas being pumped into the atmosphere.
Mr Guterres said: ‘The emissions gap is the result of a leadership gap.
‘But leaders can still make this a turning point to a greener future instead of a tipping point to climate catastrophe.’
The report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) found fresh pledges by governments to cut emissions are raising hopes but are not strict enough to keep global warming from exceeding 1.5C (2.7F) this century.
It concluded that recent announcements by dozens of countries to aim for net-zero emissions by 2050 could, if fully implemented, limit a global temperature rise to 2.2C (4F).
That is still above the target agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accord of capping global warming at 2C (3.6F) compared with pre-industrial times.
French climate scientist Valerie Masson-Delmotte told the United Nations yesterday: ‘Every ton of carbon dioxide emissions adds to global warming.’
The co-chairman of a UN climate science report in August, added: ‘The climate we experience in the future depends on decisions now.’
The European Union, the United States and dozens of other countries have set netzero emissions targets.
However, the UNEP report said the net-zero goals of many governments are vague, with much of the heavy lifting on emissions cuts pushed beyond 2030.
Mr Guterres said scientists were clear on the facts of climate change. He added: ‘[Leaders] need to come to Glasgow with bold, time-bound, front-loaded plans.’
Mr Guterres also made a direct plea to China, the top carbon polluter, to make carbon-cutting efforts go faster than previously proposed.
He said ‘that would have an influence on several other countries’. China hasn’t updated its
‘This is moment of truth’ ‘We must take radical action’
required emissions cut pledge. The UN General Assembly yesterday focused on climate change in a marathon session of speeches.
The presidents of vulnerable island nations Palau and the Maldives used the opportunity to appeal for the world to do more because their countries are at risk of being wiped out.
‘Our homes, our blue economy, our heath and our overall wellbeing have been ravaged by the climate crisis,’ Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. told the General Assembly. ‘We must take radical action now.’
‘The fate of small islands today is the fate of the world tomorrow,’ Maldives President Ibrahim Solih said.