In the face of global warming and its accelerating impacts, humanity must “cooperate or perish”, the UN Secretary General warned Monday at COP27, giving the world a choice, “solidarity” or ” mass suicide”. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It’s either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact,” Antonio Guterres said at the opening of the climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. . In a deeply divided world, he repeated his call for the creation of a “historic pact between developed and developing economies, a Pact of collective solidarity”.
Many conflicts “linked to climate chaos”
A pact to “end dependence on fossil fuels and the construction of coal-fired power plants”, a pact for “affordable and sustainable energy for all”, he said. For the secretary general, “it is unacceptable, scandalous and self-destructive” that other crises, in particular the war in Ukraine, have relegated the fight for the climate “to the background”.
“Today’s urgent crises cannot be an excuse for backsliding or greenwashing,” he insisted, especially as many conflicts around the world are “linked to climate chaos.” “We are on the highway to climatic hell, with our foot still on the accelerator,” he said, adding “we are losing” the “fight of our life”.
A “war on nature”
“Let us not forget that the war against nature is in itself a massive violation of human rights,” he added.
As the world’s population officially reaches 8 billion on November 15, “what will we say when this 8 billionth baby is old enough to ask us: what did you do for our world and for our planet when you had the ‘opportunity?’, he said, repeating his call for faster and more ambitious action.
Help the most vulnerable
Antonio Guterres also called for more to be done to help the most vulnerable countries cope with the “loss and damage” already suffered due to increasing storms, floods, droughts and other extreme events. While this issue is one of the most sensitive negotiating points of this COP27, “obtaining concrete results on loss and damage will be the test of governments’ commitments for a success of COP27”.
Despite this more than gloomy observation of the state of the world, “one thing is certain: those who give up are certain to lose”, he noted. “So let’s fight together. And win!”.