UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned the political will to fight climate change seems to be fading at the same time as things are getting worse for those on the front-line.
Mr Guterres made the comments after arriving in New Zealand, where he spoke alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Auckland.
Mr Guterres plans to spend three days in New Zealand as part of a trip to the South Pacific to highlight the problems of climate change.
In New Zealand, I thanked @JacindaArdern for her efforts to curb violent extremism on social media and her visionary leadership on the global climate emergency — a model of urgent #ClimateAction for all countries to follow. pic.twitter.com/Sli9mfsRIY
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) May 12, 2019
In Christchurch, he will also meet with Muslim leaders following the March 15 killing of 51 worshippers by a gunman who attacked two mosques during Friday prayers.
Mr Guterres said he usually visits a Muslim country during the holy month of Ramadan but this year decided to visit Muslims in New Zealand as a tribute to their courage and resilience after the attack.
On climate change, he said countries are not living up to their commitments under the 2016 Paris Agreement to keep the global temperature rise to below 2C above pre-industrial levels.
He said: “We are not on track to achieve the objectives defined in the Paris Agreement.
“And the paradox is that as things are getting worse on the ground, political will seems to be fading.”
He commended Ms Ardern for last week introducing an ambitious Bill that aims to make New Zealand mostly carbon neutral by 2050.
Mr Guterres said nations must meet commitments made in the Paris Agreement (Mary Altaffer/AP)
Mr Guterres said Pacific Island nations are on the front-line of climate change.
“We cannot allow for runaway climate change,” he said. “We need to protect the lives of our people and we need to protect our planet.”
He will also visit Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu during his visit, and meet leaders and senior government officials from the Pacific Islands Forum.
His trip comes ahead of the Climate Action Summit that he plans to convene in September in New York.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here