UN Climate Conference
Warnings Of Civilization Collapse
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| A villager collects water from a well during a drought in Indonesia.- ANSA |
Leaders from around the world arrive for the ceremonial
opening Monday of the climate conference in southern Poland that will discuss
ways of curbing climate change.
By Stefan J. Bos
U.N. Secretary-General Guterres warned world leaders in
Katowice, Poland that the world is "way off course" in its plan to
prevent what he views as catastrophic climate change.
He made clear that the political will to fight climate
change has faded since the 2015 conference in Paris which set ambitious goals
for reducing carbon gas emissions.
And the UN leader said this could have severe consequences
for humanity. "It is plain we are way off course. We need more action and
more ambition. And we have absolutely to close this emissions gap," he
said.
“If we fail, the Arctic and Antarctic will continue to melt,
corals will bleach and then die, the oceans will rise, more people will die
from air pollution, water scarcity will plague a significant proportion of
humanity, and the cost of disasters will skyrocket,” Guterres added in his
address.
Famed naturalist Sir David Attenborough went even further. The
British television presenter of nature documentaries said human civilization
may collapse unless the world takes action to curb climate change. "Right
now we face a man-made disaster of a global scale," he said.
Collapse of civilisation?
"Our greatest threat in thousands of years is climate
change. If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the
extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon," the presenter
warned.
He urged the delegates meeting in Poland until December 14 to
make progress on efforts to implement the 2015 Paris accord fighting climate
change.
The Paris conference set the goal of keeping global warming
well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by 2100. But several delegates
believe climate change is “running faster than expected” with “terrible
consequences for the people.”
However, demands to curb gas emissions globally are easier
made than done. The United States is pulling out of the international climate
treaty signed in Paris. And Poland’s President Andrzej Duda already made clear
Monday that his coal-reliant nation hosting the climate gathering has no plans
to entirely remove this fossil fuel, which it has in abundance, from its energy
mix
Duda said coal was Poland’s “strategic fossil fuel”
guaranteeing its energy security and sovereignty and “it would be hard not to
use it.”
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