United Nations
Antonio Guterres opened the United Nations climate summit with an attack on wealthy countries and the fossil fuel industry
Humanity has “opened the gates of hell” by allowing the climate crisis to worsen, the United Nations secretary-general warned at a climate summit of world leaders where the fossil fuel industry was angrily denounced but pulled through The absence of many critics has undermined the largest carbon emitting countries.
António Guterres opened the UN climate summit in New York on Wednesday with a sharp attack on wealthy countries and the fossil fuel industry for their heavy-handed response to the climate crisis.
The UN secretary-general said the world is “decades behind” in the transition to clean energy. “We must make up for the time lost due to negligence, hubris and the naked greed of entrenched interests that rake in billions from fossil fuels,” Guterres said, adding that some fossil fuel companies are making a “shameful” attempt had to prevent this transition.
Wealthy countries need to get their planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions as close to net zero as possible by 2040, Guterres said – a task that a recent UN analysis says is far from plan – while also transferring promised climate finance to poorer, vulnerable countries that have done so have so far been missing.
“Many of the poorest nations have every right to be angry, angry that they are suffering the most from a climate crisis they did not create, angry that promised financing has not materialized, and angry that their borrowing costs are sky high are,” he said.
Guterres said that “humanity has opened the gates of hell” by triggering worsening heatwaves, floods and wildfires around the world, and that outside there is a “dangerous and unstable” future with global warming of 2.8° C compared to the pre-industrial era, radical action awaited them. “The future of humanity is in our hands,” he said. “We need to pick up the pace, put plans into action and turn the tide.”
Heads of state and government from more than 100 countries were asked to attend the climate summit. The invitation was aimed at those who, according to the United Nations, “have new, improved climate ambitions”. A sobering sign of the inadequacy of the efforts needed to prevent catastrophic climate change was the absence of most of the world’s biggest CO2 emitters, including Joe Biden, President of the United States, and Xi Jinping, President of China – leaders of the two biggest polluter.
Also absent were France’s Emmanuel Macron, India’s Narendra Modi and Britain’s Rishi Sunak, who was at the center of intense criticism after announcing a weakening of Britain’s policies to achieve net-zero emissions. “Their absence shows that we are not taking the magnitude of the task seriously at this time,” said Kelly Sims Gallagher, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a former White House adviser. “If we were serious, everyone would be at the table today. It’s worrying.”
The summit itself included some strong denunciations of the fossil fuel industry, a stark contrast to previous diplomatic pleasantries that muted such criticism in previous UN forums. There was applause in the room when Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, said that “this climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis.”
“It’s not complicated. It is the burning of oil. It is the burning of gas. It is the burning of coal. And we must denounce that,” Newsom said. “For decades, the oil industry has fooled every single one of us in this room. They bought politicians. Their decades of deception and denial created the conditions that exist here to this day.”
This is what Gabriel Boric, the President of Chile, said ““We must leave fossil fuels behind” and criticized “greenwashing” by big companies, while Kausea Natano, prime minister of Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation critically endangered by sea level rise, called for a treaty on the non-proliferation of fossil fuels. “The longer we remain dependent on fossil fuels, the longer we commit ourselves to mutual decline,” he said.
Some other leaders of developing countries and small island states also decried the lack of progress by wealthy nations in delivering the promised $100 billion in climate aid, as well as the difficulties in securing financing on reasonable terms to build infrastructure necessary for adapting to a world with more severe storms, heat waves and floods.
“We are in the final stages of taking the actions needed to preserve this planet, and unfortunately I don’t think everyone understands it,” said Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados.
“It is painful to continue to see you asking us to increase borrowing to build resilient infrastructure for something we have not done, and at the same time you also want to ensure that you have a loss and damage fund , who does not have this opportunity.” sufficient funds for grants to support the states in reconstruction. It is unconscionable and almost a crime against humanity.”
Guterres acknowledged that the summit alone was unlikely to significantly change the course of the climate crisis, but some measures were announced in New York, such as the fact that the US is one of many countries that have signed a treaty to protect the world’s oceans . Meanwhile, Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York, has pledged an additional $500 million to close coal and gas power plants in the US.
But a major gap remains in what is needed to avert catastrophic climate change, and there is little optimism that the upcoming Cop28 climate summit in Dubai in November will provide relief.
“The small steps being offered to countries are welcome, but they are like trying to put out an inferno with a leaky hose,” said David Waskow, director of the International Climate Initiative at the World Resources Institute. “There is simply a huge mismatch between the depth of action that governments and companies are taking and the transformative changes needed to address the climate crisis.”
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