The United Nations secretary common, António Guterres, issued a dire warning on Monday to representatives from 40 international locations on the Petersberg Local weather Dialogue, calling for extra concrete motion to deal with what he known as a “local weather emergency.”
“Now we have a selection,” Mr. Guterres mentioned in a video message. “Collective motion or collective suicide. It’s in our palms.”
Mr. Guterres didn’t instantly tackle the warmth wave punishing a lot of Europe, however his feedback got here as swaths of the continent confronted dangerously excessive temperatures on Monday, spurring wildfires in some areas.
Wales reached its highest temperature on report on Monday, 37.1 levels Celsius (98.8 Fahrenheit), beating a report set earlier within the day, in line with Britain’s national weather service. Along with the warmth wave, France and Spain additionally face wildfires in some areas.
“Half of humanity is within the hazard zone from floods, droughts, excessive storms and wildfires,” Mr. Guterres mentioned. “No nation is immune.”
The Petersberg Local weather Dialogue serves as a discussion board for discussing local weather safety agreements earlier than the U.N. local weather change convention, generally known as COP27, in Egypt this November. In his address, Mr. Guterres highlighted the necessity to scale back emissions, deal with local weather adaptation with urgency, supply monetary backing for creating international locations, and create a “concrete world response” to assist probably the most susceptible. Mr. Guterres mentioned that folks in Africa, South Asia, and Central and South America are 15 occasions extra more likely to die from excessive climate occasions.
“In going through this world disaster, we’re failing to work collectively as a multilateral group,” Mr. Guterres mentioned. “Nations proceed to play the blame recreation as a substitute of taking duty for our collective future. We can’t proceed this fashion.”
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