UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has pointed the finger at '
humanity's addiction to fossil fuels
' after a recent series of climate disasters and as a report released on Tuesday underlines that the world is '
going in the wrong direction
' .
“
Floods, droughts, heat waves, fires and extreme storms are only getting worse and breaking records with worrying frequency
,” Guterres said in a video message.
“
Heatwaves in Europe.
Colossal floods in Pakistan.
Severe and prolonged droughts in China, the Horn of Africa and the United States.
There is nothing natural in the new scale of these disasters
,” he said.
"
They represent the price of humanity's addiction to fossil fuels
", according to the UN Secretary General, who calls for an exit from coal and the development of renewable energies.
Increase in greenhouse gas
The remarks, a few weeks before the climate COP27 scheduled for Egypt in November, accompany the publication of a report compiled by the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on the state of climate science.
The document unsurprisingly shows that the world is “
going in the wrong direction
” in the face of climate change and its catastrophic consequences.
Greenhouse gas concentrations thus continue to rise with new records and fossil fuel emissions are now above pre-Covid 19 pandemic levels. According to preliminary data cited in the report, emissions global CO2 emissions in January-May this year are 1.2% higher than the same period in 2019. They are driven by the United States, India and “
most
” European countries, according to the authors.
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Global warming, linked to human activity, knows no respite.
The authors of the report estimate that there is a 93% chance that at least one of the next five years will be warmer than the hottest year on record, 2016. “
All countries must increase their climate ambitions national every year, until we are on track
", argues Antonio Guterres, who calls on "
the G20, which is responsible for 80% of global emissions
" to "
show the way
".