UN warns there are only 2 years left to save the Earth

Speaking at the Chatham House non-governmental organization in London, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Simon Stiell warned that the issue of global warming is gradually falling off the agenda of politicians around the world.

According to Mr. Stiell, the next two years are crucial in the effort to save the Earth from the current threat of climate change. The UNFCCC Executive Secretary said that countries still have the opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with new national climate plans, but those plans need to be implemented immediately and more strongly.

Scientists say a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 is crucial to limit the rise in global average temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius - the limit that would avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

However, last year, CO2 emissions from the world’s energy sector hit a record high, and climate action pledges made to date are unlikely to meet the global emissions reduction target by 2030.

Mr. Stiell called on the countries of the Group of 20 (G20), which account for 80% of global emissions, to take more urgent and drastic actions. The UN official also emphasized the need to mobilize more financial resources to deal with climate change, through debt relief mechanisms and low-interest loans for poor countries, and new international financial sources such as emissions taxes for the shipping industry.

He stressed that the main task of the climate negotiations at the 29th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan later this year is to push countries to agree on a new target for climate finance to support developing countries that are struggling to invest in transitioning away from fossil fuels and combating climate change.

The warning was issued after the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service announced on April 8 that the Earth continued to record new record high temperatures in March, with both air and ocean temperatures reaching all-time highs. This is also the 10th consecutive month that people on the Blue Planet have lived in record high temperatures.