United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres returned Wednesday to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Poland as disorder reportedly continues to define the divisions between First and Third World nations.
Guterres echoed the summit’s official line that disaster looms if the conference does not agree on the means to achieve the U.N.-mandated cuts to fossil fuel emissions, according to Politico.
The secretary general had opened the conference in Katowice, Poland, but had returned to his New York office, assured that matters were under control. But he was soon predicting the end of the world as we know it. (RELATED: Attenborough Lectures US On Global Warming, ‘Collapse Of Civilizations)
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres addresses during the opening of COP24 UN Climate Change Conference 2018 in Katowice, Poland Dec. 3, 2018. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel.
“To waste this opportunity would compromise our last best chance to stop runaway climate change. It would not only be immoral, it would be suicidal,” he said. (RELATED: The Paris Climate Agreement Is ‘Dead,’ Declares Former Top UN Delegate)
Poland is nominally in charge of the climate change summit, but Guterres’ return may be a sign that the U.N. does not have confidence in its ability to secure a climate change deal.
Brazil has also adopted an increasingly hostile stance toward following the U.N.’s lead on climate change and has become the object of scorn by environmentalists. Brazil backed out of its commitment to host the next climate change conference.
Support for climate change legislation is highest among European Union (EU) delegates, some of whom met with their Chinese counterparts Wednesday in an effort to salvage some sort of agreement.
Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks during the COP24 UN Climate Change Conference 2018 in Katowice, Poland Dec. 3, 2018. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel.
Guterres met with both the EU and China. Third World countries are not anxious to provide the U.N. with a blank check with regard to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. They want assurances that wealthier countries will pay for any economic dislocation from cutting their use of fossil fuels.
The process will be “painful,” according to one unnamed source quoted by Politico.