UN Chief Antonio Guterres has asserted that the world is “sleepwalking to climate catastrophe.” He said the prominent world economies are contributing to a boom in carbon pollution when the situation demands significant cuts.
“The goal of limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius has already been put on life support,” he added while speaking at a sustainability conference in London.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has set a target of reducing greenhouse gases by 45 percent by 2030 and eliminating carbon pollution altogether by mid-century to keep this objective alive.
Even if nations keep their promises under the Paris Agreement, emissions will rise 14% by the end of the decade.
In a pre-recorded video address, Guterres said, “The problem is getting worse. We are sleepwalking towards climate disaster.”
“We may never reach 1.5C again if we keep doing what we’re doing,” said the scientist. “Two degrees may be out of reach.”
Only hours before the 195-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change began a two-week meeting to validate a climate change report, Trump was asked whether he accepted that human activity is the cause of global warming.
The paper is expected to argue that CO2 emissions must peak within a few years if the Paris temperature targets are to be achieved.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres slammed the COVID recovery budget as “staggeringly uneven” and a missed chance to quicken the shift toward clean energy.
He warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might be “catastrophic” for climate action, adding that importers will lock in fossil fuel dependence as a result of the crisis.