Antonio Guterres’ comments came during a speech at the COP27 climate change summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
The United Nations secretary general issued a stark warning Monday, telling attendees at the COP27 summit that the world was losing its fight against climate change and repeating his call to phase-out coal by the year 2040.
« We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing, » Antonio Guterres said.
« Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing, global temperatures keep rising, and our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible, » Guterres, who was speaking in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, added.
« We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator. »
Expanding on his point, the ex-prime minister of Portugal said the war Ukraine and other conflicts had « caused so much bloodshed and violence and had dramatic impacts all over the world. »
« But we cannot … accept that our attention is not focused on climate change. »
While collaboration was needed to bolster peace efforts and end « tremendous suffering, » climate change was « on a different timeline, and a different scale. »
« It is the defining issue of our age. It is the central challenge of our century. It is unacceptable, outrageous and self-defeating to put it on the back burner. »
Many of the conflicts taking place around the world, Guterres said, were « linked with growing climate chaos.
