The United Nations Organization (UN) Tuesday called on international leaders to tax the windfall profits of fossil energy companies and allocate the proceeds to help the countries most affected by the climate change and those suffering from food and energy prices.
The general secretary of the organization, Anthony Guterreshad already raised the idea in recent months, but now he defended it before heads of state and government from around the world in his opening speech at the United Nations General Assembly, according to a report by the agency Eph.
#InVideo?| Secretary General of the @ONU_es, @antonioguterres He emphasized that addressing the climate crisis should be a priority.
“There is another battle that we must end. Our suicidal war against nature,” he said.#StartOfTheSchoolYearVictorious pic.twitter.com/kbSo4QwLnq
— VTV CHANNEL 8 (@VTVcanal8) September 20, 2022
“Our world is addicted to fossil fuels. It is time for an intervention,” said Guterres, who stressed that companies in this sector must be held accountable and that it is time to stop the public relations and political pressure machinery that defends them.
The Portuguese diplomat made it clear that it is not possible to end these energy sources from one day to the next, but he called for a “just transition” in which the big polluters pay, the publication refers. “Today I call on all developed economies to tax the windfall profits of companies fuels fossils,” he stressed.
For Guterres, climate change is the issue that will define this era and must be “the number one priority of all governments and multilateral organizations.”
In this sense, the agency points out, it denounced that greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase and warned that the world is heading for a “climate disaster”, with effects that are already beginning to be seen, such as the severe droughts this year or recent devastating floods in Pakistan.
“No region is safe and we haven’t seen anything yet. The hottest days of summer today may be the coolest tomorrow,” she warned.
The insistence on the dangers of climate change was also underlined by the president of the General Assembly, the Hungarian Csaba Körösi, who took the floor immediately after, before the heads of state of the different countries began to intervene, details the Spanish media .
UN: If the pace continues, the planet will dangerously warm 3.2 degrees this century
Without strong environmental policies, greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise beyond 2025, potentially leading to a global warming of up to 3.2 degrees by the year 2100, despite the fact that the objective is not to exceed 1.5, according to a new UN report published last April.
Global net emissions must drop 43% in 2030, compared to 2019, and 84% in 2050 in order to meet the 1.5 degree target; and even if this is achieved, it is likely that the temperature will exceed that limit temporarily and then begin to drop, indicated the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
According to the document, emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere amounted to 59 gigatons in 2019, a figure 12% higher than that of 2010. In this type of pollution, energy companies dedicated to the exploitation of fossil fuels.
With information from EFE.
