He is a fan of apocalyptic climate punchlines. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Wednesday that humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels had “opened the gates of hell”, launching the idea of a summit to be held at the end of December on fight against global warming.
Referring to the “terrible heat” and “historic fires” this year, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions, he nevertheless stressed that it was not too late “to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1, 5°C”. “The future is not written: it is up to you, the leaders, to write it,” he warned.
So Antonio Guterres convened this “common sense” summit where invited leaders must announce specific actions to achieve their commitments made under the 2015 Paris agreement. On Tuesday, he insisted in his speech to the assembly General of the UN that he only intended to welcome “actors likely to move the lines”.
United States, China and United Kingdom rejected
After receiving more than a hundred responses from countries justifying their action, the UN finally published the list of the lucky ones on Tuesday evening. And it has some notable absentees, in particular the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases: the United States, while President Joe Biden will still be in New York, and China, whose president has not made the trip to the Annual General Meeting.
The United Kingdom is also not on the agenda, while its Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suggested on Tuesday that he could return to the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. The European Union is, it, on the other hand, invited to present its climate policies, just like Brazil, Canada, or South Africa.
As well as France, whose President Emmanuel Macron is not in New York, and many countries on the front line against the impacts of global warming, such as Barbados, Samoa, or Tuvalu. The summit is the most important climate meeting in the United States since 2019, when Swedish activist Greta Thunberg famously asked world leaders “how dare you?” “.