The COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed States’ capacities, just when they were needed most to address our climate priorities. Without global solidarity and innovative solutions to tackle COVID-19’s impacts, all countries risk losing hard-won development gains, as well as losing the chance to develop the capacities needed to urgently act for our planet’s climate health. Moreover, a loss of hope in climate action is at an all-time high globally, especially among youth. A sustained sense of despair, leading to public apathy and inaction, would not augur well for humanity’s future, especially at this turning point that will determine our future for the decades to come.
Given the urgency this moment requires, the President of the General Assembly will convene a high-level meeting on Delivering Climate Action – for People, for Planet & for Prosperity, focused on the gap between current and required technical and financial capacities to achieve the 1.5 degrees target and how that gap can be met, through showcasing best practices that simultaneously address climate action and the myriad structural challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. It will also take stock of the ambition-raising initiatives from Member States and stakeholders made along the path to COP26 and help identify areas and sectors where more can be done. Participants are invited to focus on encouraging State Parties and other key stakeholders, including industry and the private sector, to increase ambition across key areas.
Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time: a crosscutting, multidimensional threat multiplier. The most recent IPCC report confirms that climate change is now rapid, intensifying, and widespread. UNICEF’s first children’s climate risk index estimates that roughly 1 billion children – nearly half the world’s 2.2 billion children – live in countries extremely vulnerable to climate change’s impacts. Cumulatively, this signals a moment of reckoning for humanity.
With only a few weeks remaining until COP26, we are in a race to secure consensus to keep the 1.5-degree goal within reach. We must also ensure adequate support is in place for all countries to respond to growing climate impacts, ultimately to maintain hope in our shared future on our blue planet.
While the UNFCCC is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change, the UN General Assembly has a critical role in creating a space to foster political consensus, raise awareness, give strategic direction to the UN system and forge multi-sectoral partnerships among the broader global community for the scale and breadth of ambition needed to secure humanity’s future.
