Although emissions have been reduced amid the drop of transportation activity brought by COVID-19, the world “will not fight climate change with a virus”, noted UN chief António Guterres while speaking at the launch of a wide-ranging UN climate report in New York in early March.
Responding to a question on COVID-19 likely effect on the climate, Mr. Guterres firmly responded that “both require a determined response. Both must be defeated”.
In addition, he stressed the importance of not allowing the fight against the virus to distract from the need to defeat climate change, inequality and the many other problems the world is facing.
Whilst the disease is expected to be temporary, climate change, added the Secretary-General, has been a phenomenon for many years, and and will “remain with us for decades and require constant action”.
The remarks were made on the occasion of the launch of ‘The WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019’ report at UN Headquarters in New York, on 10 March, referring to the 2020 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), due to be held in Glasgow in November.
The report, led by World Meteorological Organization, showed that several heat records have been broken in recent years and decades:
- 2019 was the second warmest year on record,
- 2010-2019 was the warmest decade on record,
- Since the 1980s, each successive decade has been warmer than any preceding decade since 1850.
As such, speaking at the launch, the UN chief called on all countries to demonstrate that emission cuts of 45% from 2010 levels are possible this decade, and that net-zero emissions will be achieved by the middle of the century.
Four priorities for COP26 were outlined by Mr. Guterres:
- more ambitious national climate plans that will keep global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels;
- strategies to reach net zero emissions by 2050;
- a comprehensive programme of support for climate adaptation and resilience; and
- financing for a sustainable, green economy.
Meanwhile, writing in the foreword to the report, António Guterres warned that the world is currently “way off track meeting either the 1.5°C or 2°C targets that the Paris Agreement calls for”.
