NEW YORK: People are as harmful to Earth because the meteorite that drove dinosaurs to extinction, the UN chief stated Wednesday, urging an finish to fossil gas adverts after 12 months that had been the most well liked on document.
Dramatic local weather shifts have already begun taking a heavy toll worldwide, fuelling excessive climate occasions, flooding and drought, whereas glaciers are melting away and sea ranges are rising.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres referred to as for a ban on promoting oil, gasoline and coal — the principle drivers of world warming — as world local weather displays delivered a swathe of recent findings signalling that the planet is in bother.
“Within the case of local weather, we’re not the dinosaurs. We’re the meteor. We’re not solely at risk. We’re the hazard,” Guterres stated.
Final month was the most well liked Could on document and the twelfth consecutive month to interrupt such a document, the EU local weather monitor Copernicus introduced.
The worldwide common temperature between June 2023 and Could 2024 was “1.63 levels Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial common”, Copernicus stated, referring to the interval earlier than human-caused greenhouse gasoline emissions started warming the planet.
2023 was already the most well liked 12 months at 1.48C above pre-industrial ranges, Copernicus has stated, pointing to the pure climate phenomenon El Nino for additional pushing up temperatures.
Though El Nino is dissipating, the World Meteorological Group (WMO) introduced humanity faces an 80 p.c likelihood Earth’s temperatures will not less than quickly exceed 1.5C in the course of the subsequent 5 years.
Humanity is enjoying rooster with the local weather targets set by the 2015 Paris Settlement to restrict warming to 1.5C, the WMO warned.
The possibility of quickly exceeding the restrict has been rising steadily since 2015, when such an opportunity was estimated to be near zero, the WMO identified.
“International emissions have to fall 9 per cent yearly to 2030 to maintain the 1.5 diploma restrict alive,” Guterres stated.
However the peak has not been formally beached, being measured over a interval of many years reasonably than particular person years.
Whereas the world agreed over the past COP28 talks in Dubai to part out fossil fuels, a decline in emissions will not be imminent.
Ban on oil adverts
“The Godfathers of local weather chaos — the fossil gas trade — rake in document income and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies,” Guterres stated.
“I urge each nation to ban promoting from fossil gas firms,” he stated, likening it to bans on different merchandise dangerous to human well being like tobacco.
“We want an exit ramp off the freeway to local weather hell,” he stated as signatories of the Paris Settlement are anticipated to ship new emissions targets by early 2025.
Guterres additionally repeated requires taxing the fossil gas trade income to finance the struggle towards world warming, particularly pointing to “solidarity levies on sectors resembling transport, aviation and fossil gas extraction”.
“Even when emissions hit zero tomorrow, a latest research discovered that local weather chaos will nonetheless value not less than $38 trillion a 12 months by 2050,” he stated.
That’s greater than the $2.4 trillion wanted by 2030 for creating international locations, excluding China, to get out of fossil fuels and adapt to a hotter planet, as estimated by UN specialists.
Guterres stated he made his speech now with considerations that the local weather disaster develop into “a sufferer of a diversion of consideration” by quite a few wars and conflicts.
With out undermining the necessity for the conflicts to be resolved, he stated: “We can’t allow them to distract us from what’s the existential menace of all occasions for humankind, and that’s local weather change.”
It additionally comes as essential local weather talks get underway in Bonn, Germany to set the stage for the UN Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan in November.
The talks should attain a brand new settlement on monetary support from wealthy international locations to the remainder of the world to realize their local weather targets.
Dramatic local weather shifts have already begun taking a heavy toll worldwide, fuelling excessive climate occasions, flooding and drought, whereas glaciers are melting away and sea ranges are rising.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres referred to as for a ban on promoting oil, gasoline and coal — the principle drivers of world warming — as world local weather displays delivered a swathe of recent findings signalling that the planet is in bother.
“Within the case of local weather, we’re not the dinosaurs. We’re the meteor. We’re not solely at risk. We’re the hazard,” Guterres stated.
Final month was the most well liked Could on document and the twelfth consecutive month to interrupt such a document, the EU local weather monitor Copernicus introduced.
The worldwide common temperature between June 2023 and Could 2024 was “1.63 levels Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial common”, Copernicus stated, referring to the interval earlier than human-caused greenhouse gasoline emissions started warming the planet.
2023 was already the most well liked 12 months at 1.48C above pre-industrial ranges, Copernicus has stated, pointing to the pure climate phenomenon El Nino for additional pushing up temperatures.
Though El Nino is dissipating, the World Meteorological Group (WMO) introduced humanity faces an 80 p.c likelihood Earth’s temperatures will not less than quickly exceed 1.5C in the course of the subsequent 5 years.
Humanity is enjoying rooster with the local weather targets set by the 2015 Paris Settlement to restrict warming to 1.5C, the WMO warned.
The possibility of quickly exceeding the restrict has been rising steadily since 2015, when such an opportunity was estimated to be near zero, the WMO identified.
“International emissions have to fall 9 per cent yearly to 2030 to maintain the 1.5 diploma restrict alive,” Guterres stated.
However the peak has not been formally beached, being measured over a interval of many years reasonably than particular person years.
Whereas the world agreed over the past COP28 talks in Dubai to part out fossil fuels, a decline in emissions will not be imminent.
Ban on oil adverts
“The Godfathers of local weather chaos — the fossil gas trade — rake in document income and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies,” Guterres stated.
“I urge each nation to ban promoting from fossil gas firms,” he stated, likening it to bans on different merchandise dangerous to human well being like tobacco.
“We want an exit ramp off the freeway to local weather hell,” he stated as signatories of the Paris Settlement are anticipated to ship new emissions targets by early 2025.
Guterres additionally repeated requires taxing the fossil gas trade income to finance the struggle towards world warming, particularly pointing to “solidarity levies on sectors resembling transport, aviation and fossil gas extraction”.
“Even when emissions hit zero tomorrow, a latest research discovered that local weather chaos will nonetheless value not less than $38 trillion a 12 months by 2050,” he stated.
That’s greater than the $2.4 trillion wanted by 2030 for creating international locations, excluding China, to get out of fossil fuels and adapt to a hotter planet, as estimated by UN specialists.
Guterres stated he made his speech now with considerations that the local weather disaster develop into “a sufferer of a diversion of consideration” by quite a few wars and conflicts.
With out undermining the necessity for the conflicts to be resolved, he stated: “We can’t allow them to distract us from what’s the existential menace of all occasions for humankind, and that’s local weather change.”
It additionally comes as essential local weather talks get underway in Bonn, Germany to set the stage for the UN Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan in November.
The talks should attain a brand new settlement on monetary support from wealthy international locations to the remainder of the world to realize their local weather targets.
