U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has urged the Group of 20 top economic powers to use their weekend summit to send a strong message on climate change
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday urged the Group of 20 top economic powers, which are responsible for more than 80% of the emissions that cause global warming, to use their weekend summit to send a strong message on climate change.
Guterres said all licensing or funding for new fossil fuel projects should be stopped and that the G20 must keep the “1.5-degree goal alive,” referring to the 2015 Paris climate agreement that set 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) as a global guardrail in atmospheric warming, with countries pledging to try to prevent that much long-term warming if possible.
Earlier this year, the U.N. weather agency had said that there’s a two-out-of-three chance that the world will temporarily hit a key warming limit within the next five years.
July 2023 was Earth’s hottest month on record by a wide margin.
Climate ministers of the G20 nations ended their last meeting for the year in July without resolving major disagreements on climate policies.
“The climate crisis is worsening dramatically — but the collective response is lacking in ambition, credibility, and urgency,” Guterres said at a news conference at the U.
