Humanity Speeding Past 1.5°C Climate Limit, Secretary-General Warns, Urging Immediate Action, in Message on Launch of Environment Report

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message on the launch of the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) overshoot report:

Humanity is speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe.

Ten years ago in Paris, leaders pledged to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C — the threshold scientists say is critical to avoiding the worst climate devastation.

The latest report from the UN Environment Programme delivers a stark warning:  The world is failing to keep that promise.  We are set to breach the 1.5°C limit within the next few years.

This summer’s scorching heat, raging wildfires and deadly floods are a warning of what lies ahead.  Every fraction of a degree will cost lives, destroy livelihoods, deepen inequality and push ecosystems closer to irreversible damage.

But we can still bring warming back below 1.5°C by the end of the century.

We must make the overshoot as small and short as possible — limiting how high temperatures rise and how long they remain above 1.5.

That demands an overshoot of ambition:  Accelerating the phaseout of fossil fuels and the renewables revolution; slashing methane pollution; and protecting land, forest and oceans.

Governments must over-deliver on national climate plans, net-zero commitments and beyond.

Developed countries must triple adaptation finance and ensure it reaches those most at risk.

The science is clear.  The solutions are at hand.  And the world has never been better equipped to deploy them.

Now is the time to raise ambition and accelerate action.

The fight for 1.5°C is the fight for humanity.

Thank you.