UN chief says US leadership important 'to address climate emergency' in the world

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said there is no way the world can fight climate change without "US leadership". Guterres, who was speaking at Columbia University, New York, said that he firmly believes climate change cannot be fought without the involvement of the United States as he urged Americans to push their government into achieving net-zero carbon emissions. 

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'Adopt sustainable ways in post-COVID recovery'

Guterres said that countries must adopt sustainable development ways while planing for economic recovery post-COVID-19. Guterres added that governments should not subsidise fossil fuel-based industries and must do whatever needed to achieve carbon neutrality. Guterres also urged global leaders to fulfill their Paris agreement promise to spend $100 billion annually in poor countries to help them develop clean energy sources, one of the reasons why Trump's the United States withdrew from the historic deal. 

Guterres further added that scientists have warned that unless the world cuts on fossil fuel production by 6 percent every year until 2030, things will get much worse. The UN chief said that the world is instead on a track to take fossil fuel production up by 2 percent each year, which he added is a "wrong direction".  

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"I firmly believe that 2021 can be a new kind of leap year — the year of a quantum leap towards carbon neutrality. The state of the planet is broken. Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal," Guterres said in his speech. 

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Guterres said world leaders must make 2021 the year that humanity ends its suicidal "war on nature", citing hurricanes, cyclones, wildfires as some of the examples of rapid climate change. This comes ahead of the December 12 summit on Climate Change, which will coincide with the 5th anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement, signed in 2015 by more than 100 countries to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. 

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(Inputs and Image: AP)