The world is counting on the G7 bloc of industrialized democracies to demonstrate global leadership and solidarity, said the UN chief on Sunday, speaking to journalists in Hiroshima, Japan, which he described as a “global symbol of the tragic consequences when nations fail to work together”, and abandon multilateralism.
The G7, which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, together with the European Union, is meeting in the city where the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, a place which Secretary-General António Guterres described, as a “testament to the human spirit”.
“Whenever I visit, I am inspired by the courage and resilience of the Hibakusha”, he said, referring to the survivors of that dreadful act of war. “The United Nations stands with them. We will never stop pushing for a world free of nuclear weapons.”
Introduction: Release date and price
Mr. Guterres said his message to the G7 leaders was clear and simple: “while the economic picture is uncertain everywhere, rich countries cannot ignore the fact that more than half the world – the vast majority of countries – are suffering through a deep financial crisis.”
He reiterated his view first expressed in an official visit to Jamaica last week, that the problems facing developing countries had three dimensions; moral, power-related, and practical.
Elaborating on the “systemic and unjust bias” in the global economic and financial system; the outdatedness of the global financial architecture; and the fact that even within the current rules, developing economies had been let down and sold short; the UN chief said the G7 had a duty now to act.
‘Clearly off track’
Highlighting the perils of overlooking the pace of climate change, he outlined the specific areas where the world’s richest were central to the success of climate action.
The current projections show humankind heading for a temperature rise of 2.8°C by the end of this century, he told journalists, and the next five years are likely to be the hottest ever, according to latest figures from the UN weather agency, WMO.
He said the G7, with it’s huge economic and financial clout, was “central to climate action”, which is working, “but not enough and we are clearly off track”.
“Our Acceleration Agenda aims to make up for lost time. It calls for all G7 countries to reach net zero as close as possible to 2040, and for emerging economies to do so as close as possible to 2050.”
A Climate Solidarity Pact calls for the G7 to mobilize resources to support less well-off economies in accelerating decarbonization, to stay within the 1.5° limit on heating, compared with pre-industrial levels.
On her way she met a copy. The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country.
But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk with Longe and Parole and dragged her into their agency, where they abused her for their projects again and again. And if she hasn’t been rewritten, then they are still using her. Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia.
A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen.
It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment.
Phase out coal
“This requires faster timelines to phase out fossil fuels and ramp up renewables. It means putting a price on carbon and ending fossil fuel subsidies. I call on the G7 to phase out coal completely by 2030”, the UN chief said.
But he also made a call for climate justice, on behalf of the countries who have done the least to cause the crisis, but are suffering the most.
“We must ramp up adaptation and early warning systems to help communities on the front lines…It’s high time for developed countries to provide the promised $100 billion per year”, he added.
And he also reiterated that the Loss and Damage Fund agreed in Sharm el-Sheikh, during COP27 last year, “must be operationalized.”
A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen.
