United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on G20 leaders to come together to deliver solutions on climate change and the global coronavirus pandemic ahead of the global climate change summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
Speaking in Rome on the eve of the Group of 20 summit, Guterres called on nations to overcome “dangerous levels of mistrust” to avoid a “climate catastrophe” as well as narrow an “immoral gap” on global vaccine distribution.
The UN chief said, “We see dangerous levels of mistrust among the big powers.”
Guterres said that the widening mistrust was an obstacle to the “massive mobilisation of political will” needed to successfully deal with the most pressing issues.
The two-day forum for international economic cooperation will bring together representatives of the world’s leading economies. These major economies together account for 80 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP). The UN Climate Change Conference, which begins on Sunday, will last for 12 days.
Guterres warned, “Let’s be clear — there is a serious risk that Glasgow will not deliver.”
G20 must re-establish trust
Guterres called on the G20 to make good on commitments to provide $100bn each year to developing countries for climate finance. The UN chief urged the big economies to revise their current commitments, which “still condemn the world to a calamitous 2.7-degree [Celsius] increase” in global temperatures.
He said, “The most important objective of this G20 summit must be to re-establish trust — by tackling the main sources of mistrust — rooted in injustices, inequalities and geopolitical divisions.”
Answering reporters’ questions, Guterres acknowledged that emissions-reducing efforts by China and Russia were crucial to successfully tackling global warming and other climate problems. The leaders of both countries will not be attending the G20 in person.
He also slammed the geopolitical divides hampering a global vaccination plan against COVID-19. He said, “Global coordinated action has taken a backseat to vaccine hoarding and vaccine nationalism.”
UN chief slams vaccine disparity
The UN chief directed his criticism to the richest countries, where people are getting a third dose of the vaccine, while only 5 per cent of Africans have been fully vaccinated.
Urging the G20 nations to do more on easing debt for developing countries, Guterres said, “The recovery is amplifying inequalities. This is immoral.”
