By Daphne Psaledakis and Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION HEADQUARTERS (Reuters) – Countries on the front lines of the climate crisis are fed up.
During the annual meeting of world leaders at the UN General Assembly this week, the low-lying island country Vanuatu stepped up the alert to get the world focused on combating global warming, calling for a non-proliferation treaty on fossil fuels.
“Time is up – action is needed now,” Vanuatu President Nikenike Vurobaravu told the UN General Assembly on Friday.
The treaty would aim to reduce production of coal, oil and gas to limit the rise in temperatures to the globally agreed 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The pact would also “enable a just global transition for all workers, communities and nations dependent on fossil fuels,” said the leader of the carbon-negative country.
The UN climate science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – has warned that global emissions are on track to pass the 1.5°C warming threshold to reach around 3.2°C by the end of the year. from the __ century.
Vanuatu also asked the International Court of Justice to issue an opinion on the right to be protected from the adverse impacts of climate change, a move that Vurobaravu said “is not a silver bullet to increase climate action, but merely a tool to get us closer to the ultimate goal of a safe planet for humanity.”
In Pakistan, devastating floods this month hit large swaths of the country, killing more than 1,500 people and causing damage estimated at $30 billion. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asked world leaders why their people were paying the price for global warming.
“Pakistan has never seen a more glaring and devastating example of the impact of global warming. Life in Pakistan has changed forever,” Sharif told the General Assembly. “Nature has unleashed its fury on Pakistan, without looking… at our carbon footprint.”
((Translation by the São Paulo Newsroom))
REUTERS PB
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