Speaking at the Family Hall of Ocean Life at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres issued warning of global heating.
“Like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, we’re having an outsized impact,” he said.
“In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteor. We are not only in danger – we are the danger. But we are also the solution.”
Antonio Guterres
Citing the latest European Commission Copernicus Climate Change Service report showing last month was the hottest May in history, the UN chief said that global emissions need to fall nine per cent every year just to keep the 1.5℃ temperature rise limit above pre-industrial levels alive.
Last year they went up by one per cent.
“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet. We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell. And the truth is – we have control of the wheel.”
Antonio Guterres
Nonetheless, Guterres asserted that pulling back from the brink “is still just about possible” but only “if we fight harder.”
He noted that it all depends on decisions taken by political leaders during this decade and “especially in the next 18 months.”
Also, he said that no one country or institution can solve the climate crisis on its own.
“This is an all-in moment. The United Nations is all in – working to build trust, find solutions and inspire the cooperation our world so desperately needs,” the Secretary-General averred.
Moreover, he thanked the climate activists at all levels of society who have pushed for action so far
He said, “You are on the right side of history. You speak for the majority. Keep it up; don’t lose courage, don’t lose hope.”
He added, “Now is the time to mobilise, now is the time to act, now is the time to deliver. This is our moment of truth.”
Guterres Calls For Ban On Fossil Fuel Advertising
Furthermore, Guterres called on every country in the world to institute a ban on advertising from fossil fuel companies.
He stressed that while billions around the world see their lives grow costlier due to climate change, “the Godfathers of climate chaos – the fossil fuel conglomerates – rake in record profits and feast of trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies.”
He said that many in the oil and gas industry have “shamelessly greenwashed” while actively trying to delay climate action, aided and abetted by advertising and public relations companies.
“I call on these companies to stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction. Stop taking on new fossil fuel clients, from today, and set out plans to drop your existing ones.”
Antonio Guterres
He added that creative minds in the sector are already focusing on saving the planet, not helping destroy it.
Additionally, the UN Secretary-General called on national climate action plans to fall in line with the 1.5℃ limit and include absolute emission reduction targets for 2030, 2035 and all the global milestones along the way in the decades ahead.
“Every country must deliver and play their rightful part…We need cooperation, not finger-pointing,” Guterres declared.
In terms of climate justice, he said that it was a disgrace that most vulnerable nations are being left stranded with the impacts of a climate crisis they did nothing to create.
“We cannot accept a future where the rich are protected in air-conditioned bubbles while the rest of humanity is lashed by lethal weather in unlivable lands.”
Antonio Guterres
He noted that fairer climate finance and an end to the crippling debt and high interest rates that many developing nations have to endure is not a question of charity but about “enlightened self-interest.”
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