The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
Edited News , Press Conferences | WMO
Lack of progress to combat climate change hampers fight against poverty, hunger
Lack of progress to combat climate change hampers fight against poverty, hunger
The world is far from meeting its climate goals, seriously undermining efforts to tackle hunger, poverty and ill-health, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
Launching a new multi-agency report coordinated by the WMO, the UN agency also warned that insufficient progress towards climate goals is preventing better access to clean water and energy, and many other aspects of sustainable development.
“We are not going to meet climate targets and we are not going to meet the Sustainable Development Goal targets either at the current pace of action”, said Professor Petteri Taalas, WMO’s Secretary-General, at the UN in Geneva. “This was a demonstration of what has happened to the emissions in various parts of the world a year ago and from 2022 to 2023.”
The report, entitled “United in Science 2023” combines input and expertise from 18 UN organizations. It notes that at the midway point of the SDG 2030 Agenda, only 15 per cent of the goals have been achieved. When the SDG Agenda was launched in 2015 in New York, the aim was “a world of universal respect for human rights and human dignity, the rule of law, justice, equality and non-discrimination”.
According to Professor Taalas between 1970 and 2021, “we have seen 12,000 disasters related to weather and there have been two million people who have been killed in those disasters, mostly in less developed countries, 90 per cent in less developed countries. And there has been $4.3 trillion losses and 60 per cent of those have been taking place in less developed countries.”
The report underlines that science is central to find solutions to many of the current challenges the world faces.
“In the report we are demonstrating that with science and services, we can mitigate these negative impacts of climate change”, said the WMO chief. “At the moment, we have a major program called ‘Early Warning Services for All’. So what we aim is that in five years we would have 100 per cent coverage of proper early warning services, also in less developed countries in Africa and island states.”
The report shows how weather forecasting helps to boost food production and efforts to end hunger. Early warning-systems help to reduce poverty by giving people the change to prepare and limit the impact.
The need for science and solutions is more urgent than ever; 2023 has shown that climate change is here with record temperatures and extreme weather causing havoc around the globe.
“We have this record ocean heat this year, which is having impacts on ecosystems and fisheries, and it's also boosted by the acidification of the seawater since oceans serve as a sink of carbon dioxide,” said Professor Taalas.
Some future changes in climate are unavoidable, and potentially irreversible, but every fraction of a degree and every ton of CO2 matters if global warming is to be slowed and the SDGs achieved, says the report.
“The negative trend in weather patterns will anyhow continue until 2060,” said Professor Taalas. “There is no return back to last century's climate anymore and this glacier melting and sea level rise game we have already lost”. He added that “may be a problem for the coming thousands of years because of the very high concentration of carbon dioxide. So this is a growing issue we have just seen the first impacts, but these negative impacts are gradually growing until 2060.”
There is now a 98 per cent chance that one of the next five years will be the warmest on record, according to the WMO, and it quotes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projection that long-term warming may reach the Paris level of 1.5C “in the early 2030s”.
However, WMO chief stressed that humankind is “not heading towards the end of the world. We are not heading towards the end of mankind, no biosphere, but we are talking about different scales of gray for the future. If we are able to reach the Paris limits of 1.5 to 2 degrees, then we could say that we will have a light gray future”.
The United in Science report was issued ahead of the SDG Summit and the Climate Action Summit which takes place at the UN General Assembly next week.
-ends-
STORY: Report launch: United in Science - WMO
DURATION (TRT): 3:00"
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16/9
DATELINE: 14 September 2023, GENEVA SWITZERLAND
- Exterior medium shot: UN flag alley, UN Geneva
- Wide shot: speakers at podium and attendees at the press conference, screens with speaker
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Petteri Taalas, WMO’s Secretary-General : “We are not going to meet climate targets and we are not going to meet the Sustainable Development Goal targets either at the current pace of action. This was a demonstration of what has happened to the emissions in various parts of the world a year ago and from 2022 to 2023”.
- Medium shot: attendee at the press conference
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Petteri Taalas, WMO’s Secretary-General: “We have seen 12,000 disasters related to weather and there have been 2 million people who have been killed in those disasters, mostly in less developed countries, 90 per cent in less developed countries. And there has been $4.3 trillion losses and 60 per cent of those have been taking place in less developed countries.”
- Close up: journalist
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Petteri Taalas, WMO’s Secretary-General: “In the report we are demonstrating that with science and services, we can mitigate these negative impacts of climate change. At the moment, we have a major program called ‘Early Warning Services for All’. So what we aim is that in five years we would have hundred percent coverage of proper early warning services, also in less developed countries in Africa and island states.”
- Close up: journalist listening
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Petteri Taalas, WMO’s Secretary-General: “We have this record ocean heat this year, which is having impacts on ecosystems and fisheries, and it's also boosted by the acidification of the seawater since oceans serve as a sink of carbon dioxide”.
- Close up: journalist from behind in front of this laptop
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Petteri Taalas, WMO’s Secretary-General: “The negative trend in weather patterns will anyhow continue until 2060. There is no return back to last century's climate anymore and this glacier melting and sea level rise game we have already lost that. That may be a problem for the coming thousands of years because of the very high concentration of carbon dioxide. So this is a growing issue we have just seen the first impacts, but these negative impacts are gradually growing until 2060.”
- Wide shot, podium with speakers
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Petteri Taalas, WMO’s Secretary-General: “We are not heading towards the end of the world. We are not heading towards the end of mankind, no biosphere, but we are talking about different scales of gray for the future. If we are able to reach the Paris limits of 1.5 to 2 degrees, then we could say that we will have a light gray future”.
- Wide shot, speakers at the podium with journalists in the press room
- Medium shot, attendees
- Wide shot, camera people
Similar Stories
2
2
1
2
Press Conferences , Edited News , Images | UNEP
Negotiations got under way at UN Geneva on Tuesday to agree on a legally binding treaty to curb plastic pollution, with delegates from nearly 180 countries attending.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | UN WOMEN , UNHCR , UNICEF
Alessandra Vellucci of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing, attended by spokespersons and representatives of the United Nations Children’s Fund, UN Women, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
1
1
1
Edited News | OCHA , UNICEF
Gaza: Hundreds of trucks per day of free aid needed “for months”, in addition to commercial supplies - OCHA
Despite the tactical pauses Israel introduced last week to allow some safe passage for humanitarian convoys, the amount of aid that has entered Gaza remains by far insufficient for the starving population, and UN trucks continue to face impediments on their way to delivering aid.
1
1
1
Edited News | UN WOMEN
Aid agencies echoed wider warnings of growing signs of widespread starvation in Gaza on Tuesday, as UN-partnered international food security experts released their most dire assessment yet of the situation in the wartorn enclave.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | WFP , UN WOMEN , UNEP , UNCTAD , WMO
Alessandra Vellucci of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing, attended by spokespersons and representatives of the International Parliamentary Union, the World Food Programme, UN Women, the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Trade and Development, and the World Meteorological Organization.
1
2
1
Press Conferences | UNOG , IPU
Press briefing by Mr Martin Chungong, IPU Secretary General, ahead of the Sixth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament
1
1
1
Edited News | IOM , UNDP , UNHCR
Sudan: urgent help needed as more than 1.3 million war-displaced people begin to return home
As conflict rages on across parts of Sudan, pockets of relative safety have emerged in the past four month, spurring more than one million internally displaced Sudanese to make their way home, says the International Organization for Migration (IOM). A further 320,000 cross-border refugees have come back to Sudan since last year, mainly from Egypt and South Sudan, to assess the current situation before deciding to return to their country for good.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | IOM , UNHCR , UNDP , WHO , OCHA
Michele Zaccheo of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing, attended by spokespersons and representatives of the International Organization for Migration, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNRWA , WHO
Gaza: SOS messages describe people fainting from hunger; UN health worker detained
Worrying alerts from United Nations staff in Gaza who have been fainting from hunger and exhaustion over the past 48 hours have increased fears for people’s survival in the devastated enclave, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | IPU , UNRWA , WHO , OCHA
Alessandra Vellucci of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing, attended by spokespersons and representatives of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the International Parliamentary Union.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNHCR , UNOG
Over 11.6 million refugees risk losing aid access due to funding cuts, says UNHCR
Approximately one in three refugees and other vulnerable individuals normally supported by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) are expected to lose out from funding cuts, it said on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, made the following announcement on the Office’s opening of a new mission in Bangladesh.