The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, urged this Wednesday that world powers demonstrate greater commitment to the fight against climate change and stop playing “Russian roulette with the planet.”
“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet (…) Everything (the future) depends on the decisions that current leaders make or do not make, especially in the next 18 months. “It is the moment of truth,” said Guterres in a press conference from the American Museum of Natural History, located in New York.
His statements come during World Environment Day and just before the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) presents its climate predictions for the next five years.
In fact, the UN high representative announced that the WMO will report that there is an 80% probability that the average annual temperature will exceed the limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius in at least one of the next five years. In 2015, the probability was almost zero.
Furthermore, there is “another 50% chance that the average temperature for the entire next five years will be 1.5 degrees higher than that of pre-industrial times.”
Thousands of scientists and experts agreed in the Paris Agreement (2015) that limiting the increase in global average temperature annually to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius would help avoid the worst environmental consequences and maintain a habitable climate.
In this sense, Guterres emphasized the work to be done that corresponds to the “richest 1% that emit the same amount of carbon emissions as two-thirds of humanity”, a proportion that encompasses some 5 billion people.
For him, the G20 countries “have a responsibility” and “must go further” – as they produce 80% of global emissions – by committing to reallocate subsidies from fossil fuels to renewable energy and to end coal by 20230.
“We cannot accept a future in which the rich are protected in air-conditioned bubbles, while the rest of humanity is battered by a lethal climate on uninhabitable lands,” he said.
“We are not the dinosaurs, we are the meteorite”
And he compared the “current emergency situation” and its “disproportionate effect” for the near future with “the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs.”
“In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs, we are the meteorite. We are not only in danger, we are the danger. But we are also the solution,” said Guterres, leaving a silver lining for hope.
But, to do this, it is necessary to “keep the 1.5 degree threshold in force” and for global emissions to decrease by 9% each year until 2030, according to the Secretary General of the United Nations.
“The world is spewing emissions at such a rate that, by 2030, a much greater temperature rise would be practically guaranteed,” the Portuguese diplomat added.
In that scenario, the world would suffer “devastating consequences” that would range from “catastrophic rises” in sea levels, to the destruction of coral reefs or the disintegration of the livelihoods of 300 million people, Guterres cited among some examples. .
“Cities like New Delhi, Bamako or Mexico City are burning. Not maintaining the 1.5 degree limit would also mean the breakdown of supply chains, raising prices and growing food insecurity (…) Even if emissions reached zero tomorrow, a recent study concludes that climate chaos will continue to cost the world. least 38 trillion dollars a year in 2050,” he warned.