{"id":853,"date":"2020-12-03T08:59:20","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T08:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=131340"},"modified":"2020-12-03T08:59:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T08:59:20","slug":"the-planet-is-broken-u-n-chief-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/03\/the-planet-is-broken-u-n-chief-says\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The planet is broken,\u2019 U.N. chief says"},"content":{"rendered":"

As if we didn\u2019t have enough reasons to hate 2020, the United Nations just offered one more. On Wednesday, the U.N. and the World Meteorological organization released a report<\/a> on the \u201cstate of the climate\u201d and \u2013 surprise, surprise \u2013 it looks bleak. The year from hell is on course to be the third warmest<\/a> on record, viruses are jumping out of nature<\/a> to attack us, and the world has already warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo put it simply, the state of the planet is broken,\u201d said U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, in a speech at Columbia University. \u201cHumanity is waging war on nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report lays out some of the most devastating \u2013 and shocking \u2013 effects of climate change over the past year. Heavy rain and flooding overwhelmed large areas of Africa and Asia, searing heat surged across even the coldest regions of the globe (a town in the Arctic circle<\/a> recorded a temperature of 100.4 degrees in June), and the Atlantic Ocean spawned a record 30 named hurricanes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And even though humanity pumped slightly<\/em> less carbon dioxide<\/a> into the atmosphere this year as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to rise. The report says that the three largest contributors to global warming \u2013 carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide \u2013 all reached new heights in 2020.<\/p>\n

While governments have offered big promises for how they\u2019re going to combat the crisis, those pledges have yet to turn into action to match the scale of the problem. \u201cClimate policies have yet to rise to the challenge,\u201d Guterres said. \u201cEmissions are 62 percent higher now than when international climate negotiations began 1990.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to another report<\/a> released by the U.N. Environment Program and its partners, eight of the largest producers of fossil fuels (including the United States, Australia, India, and China) are planning to increase their production of coal, oil, and gas by 2 percent annually. That\u2019s despite the fact that fossil fuel production needs to fall<\/em> by 6 percent per year over the next decade to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n

Those eight countries account for 60 percent of the world\u2019s overall fossil fuel supply, and if they follow through on their energy plans \u2013 most of which were in place before the pandemic \u2013 we can kiss the 1.5-degree goal goodbye. The report also shows that, despite widespread calls for recovery from the coronavirus pandemic to be \u201cgreen,\u201d the world\u2019s richest countries (the G20) have committed much more stimulus money to producing and consuming fossil fuels ($233 billion) than to boosting green energy ($146 billion).<\/p>\n

The numbers paint a dark picture, but the situation isn\u2019t hopeless. Guterres said that countries need to start backing their promises with action before the next major climate meeting in Glasgow a year from now. \u201cEvery tenth of a degree of warming matters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n