UN: People, the main "danger" for the planet

Greed, bad decisions, wrong experiments have caused immense damage to nature. Humans, guilty of climate warming, represent the same "danger" for our planet as "the meteorite that exterminated the dinosaurs", declared the UN Secretary General, criticizing especially fossil fuels, which should no longer be advertised.

On the scale of Earth's history, humanity represents only a "blink", but "like the meteorite that exterminated the dinosaurs, we have a huge impact", said Antonio Guterres in a speech given at the Museum of Natural History in New York on the occasion World Environment Day. "In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteorite. We are not only in danger, we are the danger itself," he added. "But we are also the solution", continued Antonio Guterres, urging once again to strengthen the climate fight to try to limit the warming of the climate by 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement , "which now hangs only by a thread". "The battle for +1.5°C will be won or lost in the 2020s in the eyes of today's politicians. It all depends on the decisions these politicians make - or don't make -, especially in the next 18 Monday," said the UN Secretary General. "It is a critical moment for the climate", he insisted, urging humanity "to head for the exit ramp of the highway that leads to hell", in the context in which the signatory countries of the Paris Agreement must fix their 2025 new objectives regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The first target of his criticism, as usual, was the fossil fuel sector (coal, oil, gas), "the godfathers of climate chaos" who "obtain record profits and soak up billions in subsidies paid for by taxpayers' taxes." He reiterated his call for taxing the profits from this sector to finance the fight against climate warming, at the same time evoking, without specifying his idea, certain "solidarity taxes" in the aviation and maritime transport sectors. Antonio Guterres also denounced the "complicity" of advertising agencies in the "shameless greenwashing" practiced by the fossil fuel sector, the main culprits for global warming. "Many governments restrict or ban advertising for products that are harmful to human health, such as tobacco (...) I call on every country to ban advertising for fossil fuel companies," he added. Antonio Guterres reiterated his call for rich countries to ditch coal by 2030 and cut their oil and gas consumption by 60% by 2035. Rich countries are historically more to blame for climate change and, therefore, it should increase its aid to the poorest countries, he argued. The poorest countries must prepare for increasingly intense and frequent climate disasters, added the UN Secretary General.