By Chathushka Perera
London, UK (CWBN)_ Addressing the virtual United Nations Climate Change Conference, co-hosted by the UK, France and the UN, the organisation’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres claimed that the steps taken by the collective were inadequate and urged governments to use the pandemic to change course.
“Five years after Paris, we are still not going in the right direction … the commitments made in Paris were far from enough to get there and even those commitments are not being met. Carbon dioxide levels are at record highs,” he said.
Meanwhile, PM Boris Johnson said that “We’re doing this not because we are hairshirt-wearing, tree-hugging, mungbean-munching eco freaks, although I’ve got nothing against any of those categories, and mungbeans are probably delicious.”
The virtual conference was in effect a playback of about a hundred short video clips of politicians, businesses and climate campaigns, while much attention was paid to Chinese President Xi Jingping’s address.
Ahead of the conference, in September, China had pledged to gradually reach carbon neutrality by 2060, however had failed to provide any details as to how the initiative will be implemented.
During his address Jingping noted that China would be reaching its peak emission rate within the next ten years, and maintained the country’s pledge for carbon neutrality.
He also added that “China will lower its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by over 65 percent from the 2005 level, increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 25 percent, increase the forest stock volume by 6 billion cubic meters from the 2005 level, and bring its total installed capacity of wind and solar power to over 1.2 billion kilowatts.”
Meanwhile, incumbent President Donald Trump, representing the world’s second largest polluter, the US, pulled the country out of the Paris Agreement and has often referred to the impending climate collapse as a “hoax”. Much of these misleading claims have gone viral during his tenure.
In fact, last year in September, Trump completely side-lined US concerns with regard to climate change prior to the UN climate summit and pushed his administrations apparent focus on a “global call to protect religious freedoms”, which was meant to reflect on his re-election campaign in 2020.
However decided to attend the summit at the last minute.
When questioned by reporters as to whether his actions were a snub to other world leaders, Trump said that “No, it’s not a snub at all. I’m very busy. The floods are very important to me, and, uh, climate change – everything is very important,” having been briefed regarding floods in Texas earlier that morning.
Nonetheless, President-elect Joe Biden as reaffirmed his dedication to the fight against climate change via Twitter, saying that “Five years ago today, the world gathered to adopt the Paris Agreement on climate change. And in 39 days, the United States is going to re-join it. We’re going to rally the world to push our progress further and faster and tackle the climate crisis head-on.”
In addition, the funding provided to the climate change initiative will not meet its targets this year, and Russia, Australia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia failed to participate in the conference entirely.
