Guterres calls on nations to accelerate climate action

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged nations to accelerate climate action at a high-level climate meeting in New York. He warned that current climate commitments would still result in more than 2C of global warming. Guterres emphasized the need to transition swiftly to renewable energy, as the world faces an overshoot of the 1.5C warming threshold.

He highlighted that the emerging super El Niño was exacerbating climate impacts while global greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise. Guterres called for climate justice in mitigation, adaptation, and finance. He stressed that countries must answer the call with aggressive action, as there is no time to lose. Science now indicates the world is heading towards an overshoot, and the priority should be to make that overshoot as small and short as possible.

Guterres criticized the expansion of fossil fuel production, noting that dependence on oil and gas drives up costs, burdens governments, and leaves countries vulnerable to geopolitical conflicts. He stressed that clean energy has become the cheapest, fastest, and most secure source of new electricity in most parts of the world. However, even if countries fully implement their existing climate plans, the world would still face warming of more than 2C.

To close this gap, Guterres called for a tripling of renewable energy capacity, a doubling of energy efficiency improvements, electrification of economies, reduction of methane emissions, and halting deforestation. He emphasized that all countries must increase their ambition, with the G20 group of major economies, responsible for around 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions, playing a crucial role.

Guterres stressed that the transition must be fair, involving affected workers and communities, while ensuring developing countries share in economic benefits. He warned that without increased climate adaptation funding, droughts would become food crises, storms debt crises, and heatwaves increasingly deadly. Guterres urged governments to match the accelerating climate crisis with accelerating action, stating that they are the first generation with the tools to end the fossil fuel age and the last who can avert climate catastrophe.