United Nations, Sept 25: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called on all countries that are party to the Paris climate agreement to set new climate plans for the year 2035 that achieve faster and deeper emission reduction cuts than they’ve already pledged.Guterres is hosting a climate leaders summit on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, where he has asked countries to announce their new climate targets to drum up momentum for the global COP30 climate negotiations in November in Brazil.
The summit comes a day after U.S. President Donald Trump used his UNGA speech to blast climate change as a “con job” and criticize countries like EU member states and China for embracing renewable energy technologies.
The world’s biggest historical emitter and second-biggest greenhouse gas emitter behind China, the U.S. is currently withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, the 10-year-old climate pact that aimed to prevent global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius through national climate plans.
“The Paris Agreement has made a difference,” Guterres said in prepared remarks, adding that since it was adopted in 2015, projected global temperature rise has dropped from four degrees C to 2.6 – if current national climate plans are fully implemented.
“Now, we need new plans for 2035 that go much further, much faster,” he said.