'We must stop', UN Chief raises alarm on climate catastrophe

MADRID: U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says global efforts to stop climate change have been “utterly inadequate” so far and warns that “the point of no return is no longer over the horizon.”

Guterres told reporters in Madrid on Sunday that the world has the scientific knowledge and the technical means to keep global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate accord, but “what is lacking is political will.”

Speaking before the start Monday of a two-week international climate conference in the Spanish capital, Guterres said that “our war against nature must stop and we know that that is possible.”

Guterres also announced that outgoing Bank of England governor Mark Carney will become his new special envoy on “climate action and climate finance” from next year.

Yesterday, Tens of thousands of protesters hit the streets of Europe and Asia on Friday to make a fresh call for action against global warming, hoping to raise pressure on world leaders days before a UN climate summit.

Carrying signs that read “One planet, one fight” and “The sea is rising, so must we”, thousands flocked to Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate for the latest “Fridays for Future” protest inspired by 16-year-old campaigner Greta Thunberg.

Some 30,000 mainly young people also gathered in Hamburg and another 17,000 in Munich to voice alarm at rising temperatures, police said.