LONDON | States must join together to fight against global warming or our world will be “lost”, warns UN boss Antonio Guterres, for whom the coronavirus pandemic illustrates the misdeeds of disunity.
“I believe that the failure to contain the spread of the virus, because there has not been enough international coordination (…) must make countries understand that they must change course”, he said. he told AFP before the opening of the United Nations General Assembly on September 21.
“They (States) must act together in the face of the climate threat, much more serious than the pandemic per se – it is an existential threat to the planet and our very lives,” he insisted in interviews with several members of the Covering climate now media alliance, which aims to increase coverage of climate-related issues.
“Either we are united or we are lost,” he said, calling in particular to adopt “real transformative measures in the fields of energy, transport, agriculture, industry, etc. in our way of life, without which we are lost. “
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, important international climate meetings scheduled for 2020 have had to be postponed, raising fears of further delays in the fight against climate change.
The Cop26, intended to relaunch the application of the Paris Agreement, undermined by the withdrawal of the United States announced in 2017 by Donald Trump, has thus been postponed until November 2021.
However, changes in global greenhouse gas emissions do not already make it possible to consider meeting the objective of keeping warming “well below” 2 ° C since the start of the industrial era, let alone the more ambitious one. 1.5 ° C.
“Dramatic impacts”
And if the massive confinements of populations imposed across the world in the face of Covid have cyclically reduced emissions (up to 8% worldwide over the year according to some estimates), scientists stress that the global evolution will not slow down without changes systemic, particularly in terms of energy and food.
However, to reach 1.5 ° C, greenhouse gas emissions should drop 7.6% per year over the next decade, according to UN climate experts.
In the meantime, the effects of climate change are already being felt, such as the multiplication of extreme weather phenomena or the melting of ice, with the consequences of a potentially devastating rise in the level of the oceans.
On the warming side, 2019 was the second warmest year in the world, after 2016, and experts expect the global average temperature to break a new high in the next five-year period (2020-2024).
And the UN secretary general warns: “For the next five years, we expect absolutely terrible things in terms of storms, droughts and other dramatic impacts on the living conditions of many people around the world. “.
“It’s time to wake up,” he said, stressing that a lot depends on the actions that the main issuers will take – or not -: China, United States, European Union, Russia, India and Japan .
Polluters pay
“We have never been so fragile, we have never needed humility, unity and solidarity so much,” he insisted, denouncing “irrational demonstrations of xenophobia” or the rise of nationalisms.
While many countries are launching massive stimulus plans to try to get out of the recession caused by the abrupt shutdown of the economy due to the pandemic, Mr. Guterres has urged states not to favor investments in fossil fuels and, on the contrary, commit to “carbon neutrality” by 2050.
“Pollution and not the population” should pay taxes as much as possible to finance this transition, he insisted.
“I don’t want to go back to a world where biodiversity is called into question, where fossil fuels have more subsidies than renewables, a world where inequalities lead to societies with less and less cohesion and create instability, anger, frustration ”.
“I believe it makes us a different world, a different normality, and I believe we have an opportunity to make it happen,” he concluded.