The UN leader to university students: "Do not work for climate destroyers"

António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, on May 11 in Vienna (Austria). LISA LEUTNER (REUTERS)

The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, launched a harsh message on Tuesday against fossil fuel companies and the investors that support them, the main responsible for the greenhouse gases that overheat the planet.

He has done so before 8,000 students and members of the educational community of Seton Hall University, in the state of New Jersey (USA), where he has urged recent graduates not to collaborate with this type of company: "Do not work for the climate destroyers.”

“Use your talents to propel us towards a renewable future”, he has asked them.

Guterres has reviewed the dangers and challenges that the generation to which these university students belong will have to face.

Among others, the UN Secretary General has highlighted the climate crisis.

“You must be the generation that manages to tackle the planetary emergency of climate change”, he has reminded them.

Because, "despite mountains of evidence of impending climate catastrophe, we still see mountains of funding going to coal and fossil fuels that are killing our planet."

In recent years, the head of the United Nations has placed the fight against climate change at a very prominent place on his agenda.

In recent weeks he has also raised the tone against fossil fuels and the countries and investment groups that continue to feed them despite the evidence that places them as the main responsible for the climate crisis that hits all corners of the planet.

This Tuesday he has criticized again that the funds continue to reach the oil, gas and coal industry: "We know that investing in fossil fuels is a dead end, economically and environmentally."

In addition, he has warned that no image

"You can change that."

But, in his opinion, the moment of "accountability" of those who "liquidate our future" is coming.

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He has explained to the university students that it is also up to them to choose where they are heading professionally, because their “talent” will be in demand by multinationals and large investment groups and financial institutions.

“You will have many opportunities to choose from.

My message is simple: don't work for the climate destroyers."

Guterres, by contrast, has asked students to focus their talents on driving the "renewable transition."

A few days ago, coinciding with the presentation of a dramatic report by the World Meteorological Organization on the evolution of climate change, the UN Secretary General urged nations and companies to "start the transition to renewable energies before be too late."

Specifically, he urged that investments in green energy be tripled to reach at least four billion dollars a year.

To achieve this, the Portuguese proposed legal reforms to the nations to speed up the implementation of renewables, which is sometimes hampered by "bureaucracy, permits and grid connections."

"I ask governments to accelerate and speed up the approval of solar and wind projects," he said during the presentation of that report last Wednesday.

He also called for countries to form a "global coalition" to push for battery storage as a backup to renewables.

But Guterres also criticized that governments continue to irrigate fossil fuels with public funds.

He estimated at half a billion dollars what is spent "on artificially lowering the price" of oil, gas and coal, which is "more than triple what renewable energy receives."

This Tuesday he has once again insisted that “investing in fossil fuels is a dead end”, both from an economic and environmental point of view.

And he has recalled that "the climate crisis is wreaking havoc and threatening to erase entire communities and even entire countries, and governments are not taking the necessary measures to reverse this."

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