The world is at a “decisive crossroads,” Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, told leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly’s annual debate on Thursday.
Ensuring Sustainable development and surmounting the ‘devastating impacts’ of climate change were on the top of the agenda at the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, where King Tupou VI of Tonga was joined by a host of other Pacific Island leaders calling for action on what they saw as “the defining issue of our time”.
If there was one issue that was a recurrent theme on Tuesday on the first day of the United Nations General Assembly's annual general debate, it was the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change , from Secretary-General António Guterres’s opening address warning global Heads of State and Government that “its speed has provoked a sonic boom SOS across the world”, to individual leaders highlighting their individual vulnerabilities.
A variety of “festering” causes and effects surround crises around the world, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, said on Tuesday, speaking on the first day of the high-level portion of the United Nations General Assembly’s annual general debate.
The world risks crossing the point of no return on climate change, with disastrous consequences for people across the planet and the natural systems that sustain them, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Monday, calling for more leadership and greater ambition for climate action, to reverse course.
“It was angry. That's what it sounded like to me. When the roof came off, there were these horrible screeches, this horrible noise. It was devastating, and we all had to run”.
Land is not a limitless resource and ignoring its role in our everyday lives threatens food and water supplies, biodiversity and the security of us all, the United Nations agency that fights desertification worldwide has said.
The world must unite to “beat plastic pollution” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message for World Environment Day on Tuesday, noting that microplastic particles in the ocean, “now outnumber stars in our galaxy”.
