UN convenes day-long climate action summit

World Today

An urgent call to come up with plans to combat climate change.

The United Nations convenes a day-long session to lay-out “concrete and transformative plans” to halt rising global temperatures.

It’s the major focus as the 74th United Nations General Assembly gets underway.

CGTN’s Nathan King explains.

Climate protestors brought the streets of the U.S. capital to a standstill Monday—one of the civil disruptions aimed at world leaders in New York attending the UN Climate Action Summit—“action” because, so far, there hasn’t been enough to stave off a climate catastrophe.

“Nature is angry. And we fool ourselves if we think we can fool nature. Because nature always strikes back. Around the world, nature is striking back with fury,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

The race is on to avoid a global temperature rise of two degrees Celsius. Scientists said that can’t happen unless countries and corporations step up their commitments.

There are some bright spots. China, the world’s largest carbon emitter is on target to meet its commitments and may well reach them early. China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi promised a world in harmony between man and nature.

“Since 2000, China has contributed to a quarter of the world’s newly forested land. Last year, China saw an increase of 1.25 million new energy vehicles, outnumbering many other countries in the world. China is also actively developing a national emissions trading market,” Wang Yi said.

Wang Yi said China would honor its words on climate change. Others are not. U.S. President Trump visited the summit but stayed only a few minutes. His administration is rolling back U.S. emission standards for cars and corporations

That makes Global climate activists like 16-year-old Greta Thunberg angry.

“People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you,” Climate activist Greta Thunberg said.

The race against a climate catastrophe is not running in humanity’s favor – the UN is calling on the world to become carbon neutral by 2050- at current rates, countries will fail and the world could warm nearly four degrees Celsius by the end of the century.