The UN secretary general, António Guterres has described the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C as “gasping for breath”, and has now announced a new climate ambition summit that would challenge leaders of governments and businesses to come up with “new, tangible and credible climate action to accelerate the pace of change” and confront the “existential threat” of the climate crisis.
“We are still moving in the wrong direction,” he said on Monday as the COP15 conference was winding down in Montreal. “The 1.5C goal is gasping for breath. National climate plans are falling woefully short. And yet we are not retreating, we are fighting back.”
He added that invitation to the summit where serious new climate action will be discussed is open, but it will be a no-nonsense summit and there will be “no room for backsliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters or repackaging of announcements of previous years.”
Guterres has become increasingly outspoken about the climate emergency, and the summit will put further pressure on countries to act.
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A series of reports in October laid bare how close the planet is to irreversible climate catastrophe. Carbon emissions must fall by half by 2030 to have an even chance of limiting global heating to the internationally agreed 1.5C limit. But emissions in 2022 will set a record high.
Guterres pointed to some successes made on climate change in the past, including a “groundbreaking” agreement at the Cop27 summit in November on the issue of loss and damage, the now unavoidable impacts of climate-fuelled extreme weather and how to fund recovery in poorer countries.
He also pointed to multibillion-dollar deals between rich countries and Indonesia, South Africa and Vietnam to phase out their use of coal, the most polluting fossil fuel. “We are fighting back to help emerging economies shift away from coal and accelerate the renewable energy revolution,” he said.
Earlier this month, Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, said: “Renewables were already expanding quickly, but the global energy crisis has kicked them into an extraordinary new phase as countries seek to capitalise on their energy security benefits. The world is set to add as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the previous 20 years.”
The UN hosted a climate ambition summit in December 2020, after the Cop26 meeting was postponed by a year owing to Covid-19. The UN’s general assembly in New York each September has had an increasing focus on the climate crisis in recent years.
Adapted from the Guardian.
