13.01.2020, 18:22 6507

Inaction over climate emergency ‘not an option’ says UN Assembly chief

Inaction when it comes to the fight back against damaging climate change is not an option, the President of the UN General Assembly told a major energy conference in Abu Dhabi on Friday.
Inaction when it comes to the fight back against damaging climate change is not an option, the President of the UN General Assembly told a major energy conference in Abu Dhabi on Friday.
 
Tijani Muhammad-Bande was addressing the International Organization for Renewable Energy High-Level meeting on the particular threat faced by Small Island Developing States, or SIDS, and their partners in development, the UN News official website reads.
 

Inaction will put at risk all life on earth as we know it", warned the veteran Nigerian diplomat. "Inaction will only lead to more severe and extreme weather events, land degradation and deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution and acidification of oceans, global food insecurity as well as drought and floods."

 
More than 1,500 delegates including senior ministers, heads of international and regional organizations together with finance leaders and private sector executives are meeting for the 10th session of the International Renewable Energy Agency Assembly (IRENA), in the United Arab Emirates.
 

Despite our collective disappointment with the international community’s inability to reach consensus on vital issues during the last Climate Change Conference (COP 25), we are here to chart a way forward, with respect to a related matter: renewable energy," said Mr. Muhammad-Bande.

 

Inaction will lead to continued sea level rise, risking the displacement of 280 million people from coastal areas and islands by 2050", he reminded the session.

 

Climate change is the single greatest security and development threat facing SIDS, despite this being a crisis not of their making. SIDS are bearing the climate crisis’ most immediate and most severe consequences, including greater recurrence of devastating natural disasters that erase development gains and create additional debt burdens."

 
He noted that rising sea levels put the low-lying nations and their entire infrastructure at risk, literally eating away territory, "with some states at risk of being partially or fully submerged in the not too distant future."
 
 
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