United Nations, Feb 15 (NNN) – The year 2019 will be a critical year for the international community to take effective action on climate change, said UN General Assembly President, Maria Espinosa on Thursday, during a briefing to announce the UN’s roadmap to the Climate Summit in September.
Speaking at a joint briefing with the Secretary’s General’s Special Envoy for the 2019 Climate Summit, Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico, at the UN Headquarters in New York, Espinosa said the world was at a crossroads with the approaching deadline for achieving the first targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Two-thirds of these targets, she said, depended on climate and environment goals, and a five-fold increase in commitments from their current levels will be needed in order to meet the targets set at the 2015 Paris Agreement on dealing with greenhouse emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance, due to come into force in 2020.
Reporting on the briefing, UN News said the UN has lined up several key events leading to the Climate Summit and its follow-up. These include a high-level meeting intended to build on the success of COP24, the 2018 climate conference in Katowice, Poland which resulted in the establishment of a rulebook for the reporting of emissions and the progress made in cutting them, every year from 2024.
A “stocktaking”event will be held in Abu Dhabi in June, followed by a political forum under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council in July, which will see a review of the progress made in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 13 (urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts).
Multilateralism will be the only effective way to combat climate change, said Espinosa.
De Alba, meanwhile said the world was falling behind its targets for combating climate change, with only a third of the necessary work completed.
The year needs to see action, and this should include partnerships with the private sector and civil society and a huge mobilisation of resources (a target of 1 trillion dollars per year to support developing countries has been set) to invest in “our future, for jobs in a green future”.
–NNN
