Climate Change

I thank Dr. Fatih Birol and the International Energy Agency for convening this summit.
 
It is vital that we bring sharper focus on the need to transition away from fossil fuels and toward a clean energy future -- a future that protects people and planet and promotes prosperity.
 
Today, nations are taking far-reaching decisions as they channel trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money into recovery strategies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
As we design and implement these recovery plans, we have a choice.
 

Welcome to this virtual World Oceans Day Global Celebration, on the theme of “Innovation for a Sustainable Ocean”. 

We rely on the seas and oceans for food, livelihoods, transport and trade. 

And, as the lungs of our planet and its largest carbon sink, the oceans play a vital role in regulating the global climate.

Today, sea levels are rising due to climate change, threatening lives and livelihoods in low-lying nations and coastal cities and communities around the world.

Dear journalists, good afternoon. It is a pleasure to be back with you, if only virtually, to be able to update you on what we have been doing. 

COVID-19 continues its path of worsening destruction. 

We mourn the lives lost – more than 200,000. 

We despair that many more will follow, particularly in places least able to cope. 

COVID-19 has put the lives of billions of people around the globe in turmoil, inflicting grave suffering and destabilizing the global economy.
 
It has exposed the fragility of our societies and economies to shocks, and it has laid bare deep inequalities that threaten the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
 
The only answer is brave, visionary and collaborative leadership.
 
The same leadership is needed to address the looming existential threat of climate disruption.
 

Thank you, Professor Taalas.

The indications are crystal clear.

Global heating is accelerating.

2019 was the second hottest year on record, with the past decade the hottest in human history.

Greenhouse gas concentrations are at the highest levels in 3 million years – when the Earth’s temperature was as much as 3 degrees hotter and sea levels some 15 metres higher.

Ocean heat is at a record level, with temperatures rising at the equivalent of five Hiroshima bombs a second.

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Dear students, dear friends,

It is a great pleasure to be here today. Thank you for honouring me with this degree and through me, the United Nations and our staff around the world.

The New School is a special place. I am an engineer by training and physics has been the biggest intellectual passion of my life. But I reserve my greatest admiration for artists, philosophers, social scientists and those who explain the world and make it more beautiful.

It is for me an enormous pleasure to start with this meeting on climate change my first official visit as Secretary-General to Pakistan. For more than ten years, as High Commissioner for Refugees, I came many times to Pakistan. And in those ten years, I developed a love affair with the Pakistani people and with Pakistan itself.

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[Bilingual as delivered]

[English version; scroll down for bilingual as delivered version]