"It’s absolutely essential to reduce emissions drastically now"
Ahead of the COP29 climate summit, the United Nations secretary-general António Guterres has given a stark warning about the climate crisis.
Speaking to the Guardian, Guterres said: “I have no doubt that we are risking reach[ing] a number of tipping points that will dramatically accelerate the impacts of climate change.”
Guterres’ comments come at a particularly worrying moment for the climate.
Scientists recently revealed that it is ‘virtually certain’ that 2024 will be the hottest year on record.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election have triggered significant concerns about the ability for the world to address climate breakdown. During the election campaign, Trump called climate change a ‘big hoax’. When he was previously president, Trump withdrew the USA from the Paris climate agreement, a move reversed by Joe Biden.
Guterres told the Guardian: “The risk of these tipping points accelerating climate change is something that must be taken very seriously. Just to give two examples, some people say that we might come to a situation where the Amazon forest will become a savanna irreversibly, or that the Greenland [ice sheet] and west Antarctica will melt.
“Even if it happens over a huge period, it will melt irreversibly. So we are coming close to dramatic gamechangers in relation to the impacts of climate change in the life of the planet,” Guterres said in an interview on the sidelines of the biodiversity Cop16 in Cali, Colombia, which concluded on 1 November.
“The world is still underestimating climate risks. I have no doubt that we are risking reach[ing] a number of tipping points that will dramatically accelerate the impacts of climate change. It is absolutely essential to act now. It’s absolutely essential to reduce emissions drastically now”.
Guterres went on to say that there has thus far been insufficient ‘political will’ to address the climate crisis. He said: “I believe [1.5C] is still possible. I believe there will be overshoots, but I hope that there will be the conscience to act swiftly in order for those overshoots to be short-lived. Technological evolution, what happens with renewable energy … and other innovations demonstrate that if there is political will, the 1.5 degrees is reachable.
“So the question is not whether the 1.5 degrees is possible or not. The question is whether there will be – or not – political will for that. Let’s be honest, until now, that political will has not been there. So either the political will emerges in order to make it possible, or it will be lost”.
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
Image credit: Pierre Albouy / United Nations – Creative Commons
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