The head of the United Nations on Thursday called for “immediate, rapid and large-scale” cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to curb global warming and avert climate disaster.
Ahead of the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting next week, Antonio Guterres warned governments that climate change is proceeding faster than predicted and fossil fuel emissions have already bounced back from a pandemic dip.
Speaking at the launch of a U.N.-backed report summarizing current efforts to tackle climate change, Guterres said recent extreme weather showed no country is safe from climate-related disasters.
He said these changes are just the beginning of worse to come and appealed to governments to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord.
In their report, titled United in Science 21, six U.N. bodies and scientific organizations drew on existing research to argue that there is a direct link between human-caused emissions, record high temperatures and disasters that have a tangible impact on individuals and societies, including “billions of work hours lost through heat alone.”
Because of the long-lasting effects of many emissions already released into the atmosphere, further impacts are inevitable, they noted.
The Authors wrote that Even with ambitious action to slow greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will continue to rise and threaten low-lying islands and coastal populations throughout the world,”.
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