United Nations, March 23 (Prensa Latina) UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed today that every year that passes without appropriate action being taken to reduce global warming to below 1.5 degrees, “we are getting closer to the edge of the abyss”.
Without concrete action, systemic risks would increase and our resilience to climate catastrophes would decrease.
In his message for World Meteorology Day, celebrated every March 23, Guterres called for 2023 to be “a year of transformation, not tinkering.”
He commented that this year’s theme for the event, “The Future of Weather, Climate and Water Through Generations” commits everyone to meet their responsibilities to ensure future generations inherit a better future.
To achieve this, he called for the radical transformation of energy and transport systems, ending dependence on fossil fuels and a just transition to renewable energy.
Guterres recalled the commitment to ensure early warning systems against climate catastrophes cover everyone in the world, an initiative promoted during World Meteorology Day 2022 and endorsed at COP27, which has received support from rich and developing countries, UN agencies and the private sector .
The Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas, emphasized that weather, climate and water know no national or political borders and that the work of the organization has been guided since 1873 and will continue to be in the future by the need for international cooperation.
Among the projections, Taalas put on the table achieving a world more resilient to extreme meteorological, climatic and hydrological phenomena and other environmental events, in addition to creating a global greenhouse gas monitoring infrastructure to support the application of the Paris Agreement.
jha/crc