‘We are losing race’ on climate catastrophe, warns UN chief

WASHINGTON: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday the world was “losing the race” to avert climate disaster, but that greenhouse gas reduction targets were not out of reach yet.

He was speaking during an interview with the Covering Climate Now coalition of media, which includes AFP, days before a UN youth climate summit that will be followed by a meeting with world leaders, where he will urge countries to raise their commitments set under the Paris agreement. The landmark accord saw countries pledge to limit the long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth to two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, and if possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“What I want is to have the whole of society putting pressure on governments to make governments understand they need to run faster, because we are losing the race,” he said, adding: “What the science tells us today is that these targets are still reachable. Guterres said that inaction by some key countries, including the US, could be at least partly offset by action at the sub-national level, for example in the carbon neutral pledges made by the states of California and New York.