World leaders must act now and put the planet on a green path because “we are at the verge of the abyss”, Secretary-General António Guterres said in his address to the virtual climate summit convened by US President Joseph Biden. “Mother Nature is not waiting”, he warned, as the past decade was the hottest on record, and the world continues to see rising sea-levels, scorching temperatures, devastating tropical cyclones and epic wildfires. 

According to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) flagship State of the Global Climate report, the global average temperature in 2020 was about 1.2-degree Celsius above pre-industrial level. “We are on the verge of the abyss”, Secretary-General António Guterres said at a press conference announcing the findings.

As the world marks the grim anniversary of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which Hutu and others who opposed the massacre were also killed, United Nations Secretary-General called for concerted efforts to defeat hate-driven movements to prevent history from repeating itself. Secretary-General António Guterres underlined that everyone must “take a hard look at today’s world and ensure that we heed the lessons of 27 years ago”. 

Women need to be “front and centre” of the pandemic recovery as a matter of economics, efficiency, effectiveness and social resilience, the UN chief told the women’s commission. “Male-dominated teams will come up with male-dominated solutions”, Secretary-General António Guterres warned a virtual town hall with women civil society during the 65th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CWS). 

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a devastating impact on women and girls, and the fallout has shown how deeply gender inequality remains embedded in the world’s political, social and economic systems, UN chief António Guterres said in his address to the Commission on the Status of Women. This year’s Commission will focus on charting a global roadmap towards achieving full equality in public life but, as Mr. Guterres recalled in his speech, gender equality in all walks of life is a long way off and has been further undermined by the pandemic.