UN chief urges immediate, decisive actions against climate change

BELEM, Brazil - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday urged world leaders to take immediate, decisive actions and make concerted efforts to combat climate change.

The UN chief made the urgent call at a leaders' summit ahead of the 30th United Nations climate change conference, commonly known as COP30, to be held on Nov 10-21 in Brazil's Amazon city of Belem.

The two-day World Leaders Climate Action Summit kicked off Thursday to discuss pressing climate change challenges and commitments.

Noting that the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels as established in the 2015 Paris Agreement has failed, Guterres stressed the need for a paradigm shift to limit this overshoot, warning of ecosystem dangers along with dramatic socioeconomic consequences.

He urged world leaders to take immediate, decisive actions to reverse the global warming trend. "If we act now, at speed and scale, we can make the overshoot as small, as short, and as safe as possible -- and bring temperatures back below 1.5 degrees Celsius before the century's end," he said.

"We need to move faster -- and move together. This COP must ignite a decade of acceleration and delivery," the UN chief added.

In his address at the leaders' summit on climate action, Guterres also stressed that clean energy has much greater potential to ensure sustainable economic growth and global development, citing the fact that in 2024, almost all new power capacity came from renewables.