United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)
President Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces speaks at the news conference for the
launch of an annual report of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), at
the UN headquarters in New York, on March 28, 2019. The WMO Statement on the
State of the Global Climate 2018 states that 2018 was the fourth warmest year
on record and that 2015-2018 were the four warmest years on record. (Xinhua/Li
Muzi)
UNITED NATIONS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- United
Nations General Assembly (UNGA) President Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces warned
Thursday that the world is caught "in a truly critical situation"
while speaking about climate change.
"We are in a truly critical situation.
Eleven years is all we have ahead of us to change our direction," the UNGA
president told the High-level Meeting on Climate and Sustainable Development
for All, which was held at the UN headquarters in New York.
"The last report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has raised the alarm and
prevents us from claiming ignorance about the situation we are facing,"
she noted.
"Phenomena like Cyclone Idai, which
has devastated Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, with hundreds of people dead
and millions of people affected, are tragedies that alert us about what we can
and must prevent," said the UNGA president.
Noting that "we are the last
generation" that can prevent "irreparable damages" to the planet
and to its inhabitants, Espinosa sounded the trumpets: "There is no planet
B;" "The time to save our planet is now;" "Not one degree
more, not one species less;" "There is no future without our
planet."
"Not hearing them would be a mistake,
as to think that we still have much time ahead," she warned.
It's estimated that human activity has
already caused an approximate 1-degree Celsius temperature increase since the
"pre-industrial" reference period -- the average global surface
temperature between 1850-1900.
According to the 2018 IPCC report, another
0.5 degree of warming is likely to occur between 2030 and 2052, if the rate of
climate change stays the same as it is today. "That gives us a roughly
11-year window to get serious about reconfiguring, firstly, our response to the
inevitability of climate change, and, secondly, our continued contributions to
warming climates -- or else we face irreversible damage."
Espinosa chaired Thursday's meeting, which
was participated by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, executive secretary
of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Patricia Espinosa, and some
heads of government and state.
The objectives of the high-level meeting
include highlighting the interlinkages between climate and economic, social and
environmental dimensions of sustainable development for present and future
generations including the synergies between the climate agenda and the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development.