New York: Secretary-General of United Nations Antonio Guterres on Monday urged all countries to aim for a carbon-neutral world by 2050 and thanked the young generation for changing the way the question of climate change is being handled.
"All countries should aim for a resilient carbon-neutral world by 2050. I am very grateful to the leaders and members of the nine wide-ranging coalitions that worked with great creativity and passion so that we can get the most out of this summit," said Guterres at the United Nations Climate Action Summit here.
"Young people above all are providing solutions, insisting on accountability and demanding urgent action. My generation has failed in its responsibility to protect our planet, that must change," he added.
Representatives of multiple countries including Prime Minister Narendra Modi from India and those from Germany are present at the summit in New York.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations further urged that science has the solution for the problems created by climate change.
"The climate crisis is caused by us and the solution must come from us. We have the tools, technology, and roadmap for more than 70 per cent of today's emissions, the UN 2030-Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement are with us," he said.
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Speaking about the gravity of the situation, he said: "Any temperature rise over 1.5 degrees will cause irreversible damage to the ecosystem that supports us. But it is possible to limit warming to 1.5 degrees is possible if we change how we grow food, use the land, fuel our transport and power our economies."
Attacking the ever-increasing dependency on fossil fuels, he said: "There is a cost to everything, but the biggest cost is doing nothing. The biggest cost is subsidizing a dying fossil fuel industry, building more and more coal power plants and denying that we are in a deep climate hole and to stop that we must first stop digging."
