The world has “failed” in its promise to hold warming below 1.5C, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told global leaders in Brazil Thursday, warning of greater costs and destruction for every nation.
At a leaders summit in Belem ahead of COP30 climate talks, Guterres said decades of delay and denial meant “we have failed to ensure we remain below 1.5 degrees” of warming since the pre-industrial era, the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious goal.
“This is moral failure — and deadly negligence,” he said, adding that the world could still minimize the damage with accelerated action like phasing out fossil fuels.
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