U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made an impassioned appeal yesterday [Macau time] for the world to intensify action to combat climate change and implement the Paris Agreement to limit carbon emissions as President Donald Trump debates whether the U.S. will withdraw from the accord.
Guterres never mentioned the American leader by name in his speech at New York University’s Stern School of Business, his first major address on climate change since taking the reins of the United Nations on Jan. 1. But he said in response to a question afterward that the United Nations believes “it would be important for the U.S. not to leave the Paris agreement.”
Even if Trump withdraws, Guterres said, “it’s very important for U.S. society as a whole — the cities, the states, the companies, the businesses — to remain engaged.”
Trump, who was critical of the deal during his campaign for the presidency, is expected to make an announcement this week on whether the United States will remain a party to the climate accord that his predecessor, Barack Obama, strongly supported and signed.
Nearly 200 nations agreed in 2015 to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As today, 147 nations had ratified the Paris Agreement, representing more than 82 percent of global emissions, the U.N. chief said.
Guterres said their pledges to limit the global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius “are historic — but still do not go nearly far enough to limit temperature rise.”
“Commitments so far could still see temperatures rise by 3 degrees or more,” he warned. “So we must do our utmost to increase ambition and action until we can bend the emissions curve and slow down global warming.”
First, Guterres said he will immediately press for ratification of the Kigali Amendment agreed to in October by nearly 200 nations on limiting the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) — greenhouse gases far more powerful than carbon dioxide that are depleting the ozone layer.
Unlike the Paris Agreement, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is legally binding.
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