Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Call to Action at the G20 Summit on Climate Change, Guide, Progetti e Ricerche di Inglese Giuridico

Scarica Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Call to Action at the G20 Summit on Climate Change e più Guide, Progetti e Ricerche in PDF di Inglese Giuridico solo su Docsity! 1 PM press conference statement at the G20 31 October 2021 Prime Minister Boris Johnson's opening remarks at a press conference at the G20 in Rome Six years ago the Paris Agreement made an historic commitment to end the destruction and devastation caused by climate change. Together they agreed to limit global temperature increases to well below 2 degrees with a view to keeping that increase at 1.5 degrees. But hundreds of summits, speeches, press conferences like this later, those words and promises are starting to sound, frankly, hollow. The science is clear that we need to act now to halve emissions by 2030 and keep 1.5 degrees within reach. There are no compelling excuses for our procrastination. Not only have we acknowledged the problem, we are already seeing first-hand the devastation climate change causes: from heat waves and droughts to wildfires and hurricanes. And unlike many other global challenges, the solution to climate change is clear. It lies in consigning dirty fossil fuels like coal to history, in ditching gas guzzling modes of transport and recognising the role that nature plays in preserving life on this planet, and harnessing the power of nature through renewable energy rather than orchestrating its destruction. If we don’t act right know the Paris agreement will be looked at in the future not as the moment humanity opened its eyes to the problem, but the moment we flinched and turned away. We’ve seen some progress in the last few days and weeks. Saudi Arabia, Australia and Russia have all made net zero commitments – meaning 80% of the global economy will wipe out its contribution to climate change by the middle of the century, up from 30% thanks to the UK’s COP26 leadership. Countries such as the United States have doubled their spending on climate aid. Every nation at this weekend’s summit will end the financial support for international unabated coal projects by the end of this year. But these commitments, welcome as they are, are drops in a rapidly warming ocean when we consider the challenge we have all admitted is ahead of us.