GENEVA: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for a fightback against climate disinformation ahead of next month\u2019s COP30 summit after US President Donald Trump branded climate change the \u201cgreatest con job ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guterres issued a robust defense of \u201cclear-eyed\u201d climate science and data, without which, he said, the world would never have understood the emergence of the \u201cdangerous and existential threat of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must fight mis- and disinformation, online harassment, and greenwashing,\u201d Guterres said at the UN\u2019s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) weather and climate agency in Geneva.<\/p>\n
\u201cScientists and researchers should never fear telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guterres\u2019s remarks will be seen in some quarters as a riposte to Trump\u2019s speech at the United Nations in New York last month, in which the Republican president championed fossil fuels and derided green technologies.<\/p>\n
\u201cClimate change \u2014 it\u2019s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion,\u201d said Trump.<\/p>\n
The \u201ccarbon footprint is a hoax made up by people with evil intentions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting rid of the falsely named renewables, by the way: they\u2019re a joke, they don\u2019t work, they\u2019re too expensive,\u201d he added, about his administration\u2019s war on solar and wind power, bolstered by a new law that ends clean energy tax credits.<\/p>\n
– Planet on the \u2018brink\u2019 –<\/p>\n
But Guterres insisted that in 2024, \u201calmost all new power capacity came from renewables,\u201d and investment was surging.<\/p>\n
\u201cRenewables are the cheapest, fastest and smartest source of new power. They represent the only credible path to end the relentless destruction of our climate,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n
The WMO is marking its 75 anniversary this year, and is leading the charge for all countries to be covered by extreme weather early warning systems by 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cGlobal warming is pushing our planet to the brink,\u201d said Guterres.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery one of the last 10 years has been the hottest in history. Ocean heat is breaking records while decimating ecosystems. And no country is safe from fires, floods, storms and heatwaves.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs always, the poorest and most vulnerable countries pay the highest price \u2014 particularly small island developing states and the least developed countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
The COP30 summit will be held in the Brazilian Amazon city of Belem from November 10-21.<\/p>\n
The UN secretary-general said countries needed strong domestic climate action plans in time for the summit, urging nations to address the problem of climate disasters at source.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy November\u2019s UN Climate Conference in Brazil, countries must deliver bold new national climate action plans that align with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius,\u201d Guterres said.<\/p>\n
He said these had to include commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cMuch greater ambition is required.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for a fightback against climate disinformation ahead of next month\u2019s COP30 summit after US President Donald Trump branded climate change the \u201cgreatest con job ever.\u201d Guterres issued a robust defense of \u201cclear-eyed\u201d climate science and data, without which, he said, the world would never have understood the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":88573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88582,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88562\/revisions\/88582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}