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New York. – UN Secretary General António Guterres appealed to world leaders yesterday to show solidarity and act on the climate crisis, warning that humanity was on track for a “hellscape” of temperature rise that would bring “catastrophe.”
At the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York, Guterres called specifically on leaders to end subsidies on fossil fuels, end the use of coal, invest in renewable energy, and tax carbon and pollution “instead of people’s income.”
“The climate alarm bells are also ringing at fever pitch. The recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was a code red for humanity. We see the warning signs in every continent and region — scorching temperatures, shocking biodiversity loss, polluted air, water and natural spaces. The world must wake up”
Guterres warned that the world is “on the edge of an abyss and moving in the wrong direction” in an urgent and sometimes angry address to the world’s leaders at the UN general assembly (Unga).
He painted a stark picture of unsustainable inequalities, runaway climate change and feckless leadership.
He pointed to the current gross inequalities in the global distribution of vaccines, with large majorities in the rich world already vaccinated while over 90% of Africans were still waiting for their first dose.
“This is a moral indictment of the state of our world. It is an obscenity,” the secretary general said. He talked about vast disparities in wealth that saw “billionaires joyride into space while millions go hungry”, side by side with the retreat of democracy.
“We are seeing an explosion in seizures of powers by force. Military coups are back,” he said. When democracies fail to deliver the basic needs of their people, Guterres added: “It provides oxygen for easy fixes, silver solutions and conspiracy theories”.
It is customary for secretaries general to urge the leaders gathered in New York for UNGA to do better for their people. Guterres has scolded them before, but this year’s speech from the green marble podium was particularly bleak.
On the climate emergency, Guterres said the world was sleepwalking to disaster, noting that if all coal power stations planned around the world become operational, the planet’s average temperature will rise by well over 2C. “This is a planetary emergency,” he said. –CNN-Reuters.
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