United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Tuesday for collective action to reduce air pollution and carbon emissions after a report on climate impacts showed that the world is “heading in the wrong direction.”
“At current levels of global greenhouse gas emissions, the world remains on course to exceed the agreed temperature thresholds of either 1.5 °C or 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, which would increase the risks of pervasive climate change impacts beyond what is already being seen,” explained the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in the published report.
The world witnessed these last years a series of natural disasters, “floods, droughts, heat waves, fires and extreme storms that are only getting worse and breaking records with alarming frequency,” stressed Guterres.
The disasters “represent the price of humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels,” according to the UN Secretary-General, adding that “All countries must strengthen their national climate ambition every year until we are on track.”
The global CO2 emissions in January-May of this year are 1.2% higher than the same period in 2019. They are driven by the United States, India and “most” European countries, according to preliminary data listed in the report.
There is a 93 percent probability that at least one of the next five years will be warmer than the warmest year on record, 2016, according to the same source.
Global warming is actually linked to human activity. However, the UN science agency is still hopeful since emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels fell “significantly” in 23 countries, including many in the United States, Japan and others in Europe, in the decade before the pandemic.
Sepi Golzari-Munro, energy transition director at the Global Wind Energy Council, added that another “cause for renewed optimism” was the “unprecedented growth in renewable power…offering affordable, secure and clean energy”, which leads Guterres to call for a “renewable energy revolution to bring down carbon emissions”.
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