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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

“We are digging our own graves…” UN Sec Gen warns world leaders at COP26, urging action on climate change

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1205 days ago
20211101
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, right, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, centre, greet Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba, at the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Monday, Nov. 1, 2021. The U.N. climate summit in Glasgow gathers leaders from around the world, in Scotland's biggest city, to lay out their vision for addressing the common challenge of global warming. (Christopher Furlong/Pool via AP)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, right, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, centre, greet Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba, at the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Monday, Nov. 1, 2021. The U.N. climate summit in Glasgow gathers leaders from around the world, in Scotland's biggest city, to lay out their vision for addressing the common challenge of global warming. (Christopher Furlong/Pool via AP)

Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, An­to­nio Guter­res, has warned world lead­ers that if they fail to take the nec­es­sary steps to slow down cli­mate change, the world will still find it­self “ca­reen­ing to­wards cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe”.

In strong re­marks de­liv­ered at the COP26 Sum­mit in Glas­gow to­day, the UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al chal­lenged world lead­ers to hold to the bench­mark of a 1.5oCel­sius re­duc­tion in glob­al tem­per­a­tures by re­duc­ing emis­sions 45 per cent, by the year 2030.

He al­so urged coun­tries to “re­vis­it their na­tion­al cli­mate plans and poli­cies” every year, to en­sure they con­tribute to achiev­ing the nec­es­sary re­duc­tions in emis­sions and tem­per­a­ture ris­es. 

Mr Guter­res called on world lead­ers to “choose to safe­guard our fu­ture and save hu­man­i­ty”.

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the state­ment made by the UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al…

 

Dear Prime Min­is­ter John­son, I want to thank you and to thank COP Pres­i­dent Alok Shar­ma for your hos­pi­tal­i­ty, your lead­er­ship, and your tire­less ef­forts in the prepa­ra­tion of this COP. 

Your Roy­al High­ness­es, Ex­cel­len­cies, Ladies and Gen­tle­men, 

The six years since the Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment have been the six hottest years on record.  

Our ad­dic­tion to fos­sil fu­els is push­ing hu­man­i­ty to the brink.

We face a stark choice:  Ei­ther we stop it — or it stops us.  

It’s time to say: enough.  

Enough of bru­tal­iz­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty. 

Enough of killing our­selves with car­bon.

Enough of treat­ing na­ture like a toi­let. 

Enough of burn­ing and drilling and min­ing our way deep­er.

We are dig­ging our own graves.  

Our plan­et is chang­ing be­fore our eyes — from the ocean depths to moun­tain tops; from melt­ing glac­i­ers to re­lent­less ex­treme weath­er events.

Sea-lev­el rise is dou­ble the rate it was 30 years ago.

Oceans are hot­ter than ever — and get­ting warmer faster. 

Parts of the Ama­zon Rain­for­est now emit more car­bon than they ab­sorb.

Re­cent cli­mate ac­tion an­nounce­ments might give the im­pres­sion that we are on track to turn things around.

This is an il­lu­sion.  

The last pub­lished re­port on Na­tion­al­ly De­ter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions showed that they would still con­demn the world to a calami­tous 2.7 de­gree in­crease.   

And even if the re­cent pledges were clear and cred­i­ble — and there are se­ri­ous ques­tions about some of them — we are still ca­reen­ing to­wards cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe.

Even in the best-case sce­nario, tem­per­a­tures will rise well above two de­grees.

So, as we open this much an­tic­i­pat­ed cli­mate con­fer­ence, we are still head­ing for cli­mate dis­as­ter.  

Young peo­ple know it. 

Every coun­try sees it. 

Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States — and oth­er vul­ner­a­ble ones — live it.

For them, fail­ure is not an op­tion. 

Fail­ure is a death sen­tence. 

 

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

We face a mo­ment of truth. 

We are fast ap­proach­ing tip­ping points that will trig­ger es­ca­lat­ing feed­back loops of glob­al heat­ing. 

But in­vest­ing in the net ze­ro, cli­mate re­silient econ­o­my will cre­ate feed­back loops of its own — vir­tu­ous cir­cles of sus­tain­able growth, jobs and op­por­tu­ni­ty.  

We have progress to build up­on.  

A num­ber of coun­tries have made cred­i­ble com­mit­ments to net-ze­ro emis­sions by mid-cen­tu­ry. 

Many have pulled the plug on in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nanc­ing of coal.

Over 700 cities are lead­ing the way to car­bon neu­tral­i­ty.

The pri­vate sec­tor is wak­ing up.  

The Net-Ze­ro As­set Own­ers Al­liance — the gold stan­dard for cred­i­ble com­mit­ments and trans­par­ent tar­gets — is man­ag­ing US $10 tril­lion in as­sets and cat­alyz­ing change across in­dus­tries.

The cli­mate ac­tion army — led by young peo­ple — is un­stop­pable.

They are larg­er.  They are loud­er. 

And, I as­sure you, they are not go­ing away.

I stand with them.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, left, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, right, greet U.S. President Joe Biden, at the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Monday, Nov. 1, 2021. The U.N. climate summit in Glasgow gathers leaders from around the world, in Scotland's biggest city, to lay out their vision for addressing the common challenge of global warming. (Christopher Furlong/Pool via AP)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, left, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, right, greet U.S. President Joe Biden, at the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Monday, Nov. 1, 2021. The U.N. climate summit in Glasgow gathers leaders from around the world, in Scotland's biggest city, to lay out their vision for addressing the common challenge of global warming. (Christopher Furlong/Pool via AP)

 

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

The sci­ence is clear.  We know what to do.

First, we must keep the goal of 1.5 de­grees Cel­sius alive.

This re­quires greater am­bi­tion on mit­i­ga­tion and im­me­di­ate con­crete ac­tion to re­duce glob­al emis­sions by 45 per cent by 2030.

G20 coun­tries have a par­tic­u­lar re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as they rep­re­sent around 80 per cent of emis­sions. 

Ac­cord­ing to the prin­ci­ple of com­mon but dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in light of na­tion­al cir­cum­stances, de­vel­oped coun­tries must lead the ef­fort.

But emerg­ing economies, too, must go the ex­tra mile, as their con­tri­bu­tion is es­sen­tial for the ef­fec­tive re­duc­tion of emis­sions.

We need max­i­mum am­bi­tion – from all coun­tries on all fronts – to make Glas­gow a suc­cess. 

I urge de­vel­oped coun­tries and emerg­ing economies to build coali­tions to cre­ate the fi­nan­cial and tech­no­log­i­cal con­di­tions to ac­cel­er­ate the de­car­boniza­tion of the econ­o­my as well as the phase out of coal. These coali­tions are meant to sup­port the large emit­ters that face more dif­fi­cul­ties in the tran­si­tion from grey to green for them to be able to do it. 

Let’s have no il­lu­sions: if com­mit­ments fall short by the end of this COP, coun­tries must re­vis­it their na­tion­al cli­mate plans and poli­cies. 

Not every five years.  Every year.  Every mo­ment.

Un­til keep­ing to 1.5 de­grees is as­sured.

Un­til sub­si­dies to fos­sil fu­els end.

Un­til there is a price on car­bon.

Un­til coal is phased out. 

But we al­so need greater clar­i­ty.  

There is a deficit of cred­i­bil­i­ty and a sur­plus of con­fu­sion over emis­sions re­duc­tions and net ze­ro tar­gets, with dif­fer­ent mean­ings and dif­fer­ent met­rics. 

That is why – be­yond the mech­a­nisms al­ready es­tab­lished in the Paris Agree­ment – I am an­nounc­ing to­day that I will es­tab­lish a Group of Ex­perts to pro­pose clear stan­dards to mea­sure and an­a­lyze net ze­ro com­mit­ments from non-state ac­tors. 

Sec­ond, we must do more to pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties from the clear and present dan­gers of cli­mate change. 

Over the last decade, near­ly 4 bil­lion peo­ple suf­fered cli­mate-re­lat­ed dis­as­ters. 

That dev­as­ta­tion will on­ly grow.

But adap­ta­tion works. 

Ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems save lives. Cli­mate-smart agri­cul­ture and in­fra­struc­ture save jobs.   

All donors must al­lo­cate half their cli­mate fi­nance to adap­ta­tion. 

Pub­lic and mul­ti­lat­er­al de­vel­op­ment banks should start as soon as pos­si­ble. 

Third, this COP must be a mo­ment of sol­i­dar­i­ty.

The US$100 bil­lion a year cli­mate fi­nance com­mit­ment in sup­port of de­vel­op­ing coun­tries must be­come a $100 bil­lion cli­mate fi­nance re­al­i­ty.

This is crit­i­cal to restor­ing trust and cred­i­bil­i­ty. 

I wel­come the ef­forts led by Cana­da and Ger­many to help us get there. 

It is an im­por­tant first step — but it de­lays the largest sup­port for years, and it doesn’t give clear guar­an­tees. 

But be­yond the $100 bil­lion, de­vel­op­ing coun­tries need far greater re­sources to fight COVID-19, to build re­silience and pur­sue sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. 

Those suf­fer­ing the most — name­ly, Least De­vel­oped Coun­tries and Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States — need ur­gent fund­ing.

More pub­lic cli­mate fi­nance.  More over­seas de­vel­op­ment aid.  More grants.  Eas­i­er ac­cess to fund­ing.  

And mul­ti­lat­er­al de­vel­op­ment banks must work much more se­ri­ous­ly at mo­bi­liz­ing greater in­vest­ment through blend­ed and pri­vate fi­nance. 

 

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

The sirens are sound­ing.  

Our plan­et is talk­ing to us and telling us some­thing.

And so are peo­ple every­where. 

Cli­mate ac­tion tops the list of peo­ple’s con­cerns, across coun­tries, age and gen­der. 

We must lis­ten — and we must act — and we must choose wise­ly. 

On be­half of this and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, I urge you:

Choose am­bi­tion. 

Choose sol­i­dar­i­ty. 

Choose to safe­guard our fu­ture and save hu­man­i­ty, and I thank you.

EnvironmentUnited Nations


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