BERLIN, 21 Mar: Senior government officials gathered for a climate meeting in Copenhagen gave a muted response Tuesday to calls from the head of the United Nations for countries to show greater ambition when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged rich countries to bring forward their target for achieving net zero emissions as close as possible to 2040, and for emerging economies to aim for a date as close as possible to 2050. This would be a significant shifting of the goalposts: the United States and the European Union are currently aiming for net zero by 2050, while China is targeting 2060 and India has set a deadline of 2070.
Guterres’ call came Monday in a video message responding to a new report by the U.N.’s top climate science panel which found that the world is still far off track if it wants to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times, as agreed in the 2015 Paris accord. He did not attend the Copenhagen meeting.
Speaking at the end of a two-day meeting in the Danish capital of senior officials from dozens of countries, Egypt’s foreign minister said there was no “specific answer to the aspirational goals” set out by Guterres.
“These goals will be, I’m sure, addressed within the national context and within the national abilities,” said Sameh Shoukry, who chaired last year’s U.N. climate talks in his country. (AP)