Ahead of the UN climate change conference, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, has decried the alarming speed at which the ice in the Antarctica is melting as a result of global warming.
He outlined how the world should unite to find solution to the existential threats of climate change and its associated problems.
He said only a global pact to triple renewable energy use, a doubling in energy efficiency and access to clean power for all by 2030, will be sufficient to address the existential threats caused by the change in climate which is in turn causing global warming.
According to UN News, Mr Guterres said this while speaking to journalists in New York on Monday following his visit to Antarctica last week.
The UN Chief said the ice in the Antarctica is melting at a “profoundly shocking” speed, three times faster than the rate in the early 1990s.
“What happens in Antarctica does not stay in Antarctica,” Mr Guterres said, adding that “We live in an interconnected world. Melting sea ice means rising seas and that directly endangers lives and livelihoods in coastal communities across the globe.”
UN News reported that new figures reveal that sea ice at the South Pole is now 1.5 million square kilometres below average for this time of year; which is equal to the combined surface area of Portugal, Spain, France and Germany.
READ ALSO: World must ‘change track’ to protect oceans from climate crisis- UN chief
“The solutions are well known. Leaders must act to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, protect people from climate chaos, and end the fossil fuel age,” Mr Guterres noted.
However, with no let-up in fossil fuel extraction, he warned that “we are heading towards a calamitous three-degree Celsius temperature rise by the end of the century.”
Mr Guterres noted that the movement of waters around Antarctica distributes heat, nutrients and carbon around the world, “helping to regulate our climate and regional weather patterns but that is slowing down as a result of global warming.”
“Further slowdown or entire breakdown, would spell catastrophe,” he warned.
“If we continue as we are, and I strongly hope we will not, the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets will cross a deadly tipping point.”
He urged world leaders attending the conference starting 30 November to break the cycle.
“Leaders must not let the hopes of people around the world for a sustainable planet melt away,” Mr Guterres charged.
Support PREMIUM TIMES’ journalism of integrity and credibility
Good journalism costs a lot of money. Yet only good journalism can ensure the possibility of a good society, an accountable democracy, and a transparent government.
For continued free access to the best investigative journalism in the country we ask you to consider making a modest support to this noble endeavour.
By contributing to PREMIUM TIMES, you are helping to sustain a journalism of relevance and ensuring it remains free and available to all.
TEXT AD: Call Willie – +2348098788999
