With the world on track to set a record for the hottest year in history, world leaders, entrepreneurs, celebrities and activists gathered in Manhattan for Climate Week and the United Nations Climate Action Summit, focusing bringing the world’s attention back to the climate crisis.
The annual climate summit coincides with the start of the United Nations General Assembly, which brings together heads of state, senior government officials and private sector leaders to focus on climate change in a year marked by a record number of disasters involving billion dollars, including eight major floods.
The main event will take place on Wednesday, when UN Secretary-General António Guterres hosts his own Climate Action Summit, a high-level event aimed at reversing the decline of the goals of the Paris climate agreement and encouraging governments to take serious new actions to fight the climate. edit.
“There is a persistent doubt that (…) we can achieve our climate goals. There is a lot of resistance, so we really hope that this summit can be used as a moment to inspire people,” said Selwin Hart, special advisor on the climate of the secretary general, in an interview.
Until Monday, the UN had not announced which world leaders or officials would get one of the coveted spots to speak at the climate summit. More than 100 national officials have told Guterres they want to talk, but in recent days his team has discarded the requests, giving priority to countries planning new actions to advance their previous climate goals.
Hart said the allocation of speaking slots is not meant to embarrass any leader or country, but to demonstrate that these are the first ones “who are getting things done.”
The meeting takes place 10 weeks before the COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates and is one of the latest high-level meetings aimed at convincing countries to come forward with new climate actions and plans to abandon fossil fuels, after the G7, G20 and the BRICS meeting – Brazil, China, South Africa, India and Russia – failed to get the leaders to agree to phase out fossil fuels.
The Alliance of Small Island States, made up of nearly 40 members, will use Climate Week as a platform to call on leaders of developed countries to take stronger action to end the use of fossil fuels and to support the global increase in renewable energy, such as wind, geothermal and solar energy.
“It is disheartening to see a lack of ambition around what really ails us: fossil fuel emissions,” the small island alliance said in a statement. “We implore the international community to use the platforms of the United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week New York to signal unequivocal support for small island developing States,” she said.
Climate Week has become a focal point for climate protesters keen to draw attention to what they see as government inaction and greenwashing: companies announcing environmentally friendly actions while continuing to pollute.
About 75,000 activists marched in midtown Manhattan on Sunday calling for an end to fossil fuels, while hundreds of protesters planned a disruptive action Monday near Wall Street to demand an end to fossil fuel financing.
Source: Terra
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