Humanity has failed to limit global warming to 1.5°C and must immediately change course, warned UN Secretary-General António Guterres, writes UNN with reference to The Guardian.
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In his only interview before next month's COP30 climate summit, António Guterres admitted that humanity's overshoot of the Paris Agreement's climate target is now inevitable, with devastating consequences for the entire world.
He urged leaders gathering in the Brazilian rainforest city of Belém to recognize that the longer they delay emissions reductions, the greater the danger of reaching catastrophic "tipping points" in the Amazon, Arctic, and global oceans.
Let's admit our failure. The truth is that we have failed to avoid exceeding 1.5°C in the next few years. And exceeding this threshold has devastating consequences. Some of these devastating consequences are tipping points, whether in the Amazon, Greenland, West Antarctica, or coral reefs.
He said the priority for COP30 was to change direction.
It is absolutely necessary to change course so that the overshoot is as short and low-intensity as possible, to avoid tipping points like the Amazon. We don't want the Amazon to turn into a savanna. But this is a real risk if we don't change course and reduce emissions as quickly as possible.
The last 10 years on the planet have been the hottest on record. Despite growing scientific alarm about the rate of global temperature rise caused by the burning of fossil fuels - oil, coal, and gas - governments have failed to meet their commitments, the Secretary-General said.
Less than a third of the world's countries (62 out of 197) have submitted their climate action plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. The US under Donald Trump withdrew from this process. Europe has made promises but has not yet fulfilled them. China, the world's largest emitter, is accused of failing to meet its commitments.
Guterres stated that the lack of ambitious plans for NDCs means that the 1.5°C Paris target will be breached at least temporarily: "Of those [NDCs] received so far, they suggest a 10% reduction in emissions. We need 60% [to stay within 1.5°C]. Therefore, exceeding the target is currently inevitable."
However, he did not abandon the set goal and noted that a temporary overshoot of the target is still possible, and then by the end of the century, the temperature could decrease and return to 1.5°C, but this will require a change of course at the COP30 conference and beyond.
He urged governments to balance representation at COP30 so that civil society organizations, especially from indigenous peoples, have a greater presence and influence than people paid by corporations.
"We all know what lobbyists want," he said. "It's to increase their profits, and the price for that is humanity."
He stated that abandoning fossil fuels is a matter of economic interest, as it is clear that the era of fossil fuels is coming to an end: "We are witnessing a revolution in renewable energy, and this transition will inevitably accelerate, and humanity will not be able to use all already explored oil and gas reserves."