United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that if action is not taken by 2020 to stop the effects of global warming, it will be too late to avoid the disastrous consequences that will follow.
“Climate change is moving faster than we are,” said Guterres ahead of this week’s global climate summit in San Francisco. “If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change with disastrous consequences.”
The U.N. billed the speech as a major address on climate change ahead of the global summit in California that begins on Tuesday and the upcoming U.N. General Assembly, where progress on the Paris climate change accord will be a major focus.
The Guterres speech followed a report issued Sunday at the close of U.N. climate meeting in Bangkok, which showed that there is uneven progress by countries in developing measures for understanding global progress in meeting the Paris goals.
“This underlines the urgent need for continuing work in the coming weeks,” said Patricia Espinosa, the U.N. climate chief.
The guidelines for reporting on progress have been in the works since 2016. The hope is that they can be adopted at the U.N.’s annual conference on climate change in December in Poland.
