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STORY: NEW YORK / GUTERRES CLIMATE CHANGE
TRT: 06:17
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 05 JUNE 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
1. Wide shot, exterior, American Museum of Natural History
2. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres at the podium
3. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“We are at a moment of truth. The truth is, almost ten years since the Paris Agreement was adopted, the target of limiting long-term global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is hanging by a thread. The truth is the world is spewing emissions so fast that by 2030, a far higher temperature rise would be all but guaranteed.”
4. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres at the podium
5. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“The truth is, we already face incursions into 1.5-degree territory. The World Meteorological Organisation reports today that there is an eighty per cent chance the global annual average temperature will exceed the 1.5 degree limit in at least one of the next five years.”
6. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres at the podium
7. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet. We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell. And the truth is, we have control of the wheel. The 1.5 degree limit is still just about possible. Let’s remember – it’s a limit for the long-term – measured over decades, not months or years.”
8. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres at the podium
9. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“The difference between 1.5 and two degrees could be the difference between extinction and survival for some small island states and coastal communities. The difference between minimizing climate chaos or crossing dangerous tipping points. 1.5 degrees is not a target. It is not a goal. It is a physical limit.”
10. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres at the podium
11. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“The cost of all this chaos is hitting people where it hurts: From supply-chains severed, to rising prices, mounting food insecurity, and uninsurable homes and businesses. That bill will keep growing. Even if emissions hit zero tomorrow, a recent study found that climate chaos will still cost at least $38 trillion a year by 2050.”
12. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres at the podium
13. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Renewables already make up thirty percent of the world’s electricity supply. And clean energy investments reached a record high last year – almost doubling in the last ten years. Wind and solar are now growing faster than any electricity source in history. And economic logic makes the end of the fossil fuel age inevitable. The only questions are: Will that end come in time? And will the transition be just?”
14. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres at the podium
15. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“The G20 countries produce eighty percent of global emissions – they have the responsibility, and the capacity, to be out in front. Advanced G20 economies should go furthest, fastest; And show climate solidarity by providing technological and financial support to emerging G20 economies and other developing countries.”
16. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres at the podium
17. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“It is a disgrace that the most vulnerable are being left stranded, struggling desperately to deal with a climate crisis they did nothing to create. We cannot accept a future where the rich are protected in air-conditioned bubbles, while the rest of humanity is lashed by lethal weather in unliveable lands.”
18. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres at the podium
19. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“It is high time to put an effective price on carbon and tax the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies. By COP29, we need early movers to go from exploring to implementing solidarity levies on sectors such as shipping, aviation, and fossil fuel extraction – to help fund climate action. These should be scalable, fair, and easy to collect and administer. None of this is charity. It is enlightened self-interest.”
20. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres at the podium
21. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Many governments restrict or prohibit advertising for products that harm human health – like tobacco. Some are now doing the same with fossil fuels. I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies. And I urge news media and tech companies to stop taking fossil fuel advertising. We must also deal with the demand side. All of us can make a difference, by embracing clean technologies, phasing down fossil fuels in our own lives, and using our power as citizens to push for systemic change.”
22. Wide shot, applause
23. Zoom in, Guterres interviewed by moderator Femi Oke
24. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“There is a risk of reaching a tipping point in relation to the melting of Greenland, the West Antarctic, in relation to coral reefs in large part of the earth, the oceans, a serious risk in relation to permafrost and what we are already witnessing in the Arctic areas, and a huge risk about the Labrador currents and we all know the impact that it can have in relation to the weather in Europe.”
25. Various shots, Guterres and Femi Oke
Delivering a special address at the American Museum of Natural History on climate change, Secretary-General António Guterres today (5 Jun) said, “the truth is, almost ten years since the Paris Agreement was adopted, the target of limiting long-term global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is hanging by a thread.”
As climate records are shattered, and emissions continue to rise, Guterres stressed that the world “is spewing emissions so fast” that by 2030, “a far higher temperature rise would be all but guaranteed.”
He noted a World Meteorological Organisation report, issued today that indicates that “there is an eighty percent chance the global annual average temperature will exceed the 1.5 degree limit in at least one of the next five years.”
Guterres said, “we are playing Russian roulette with our planet. We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell. And the truth is, we have control of the wheel. The 1.5 degree limit is still just about possible. Let’s remember – it’s a limit for the long-term – measured over decades, not months or years.”
He pointed out that “the difference between 1.5 and two degrees could be the difference between extinction and survival for some small island states and coastal communities. The difference between minimizing climate chaos or crossing dangerous tipping points.”
1.5 degrees, Guterres said, “is not a target. It is not a goal. It is a physical limit.”
The Secretary-General set out what companies and countries – particularly the G7 and the G20 – need to do over the next eighteen months to salvage humanity's chances of a liveable future.
He said, “the cost of all this chaos is hitting people where it hurts: From supply-chains severed, to rising prices, mounting food insecurity, and uninsurable homes and businesses. That bill will keep growing. Even if emissions hit zero tomorrow, a recent study found that climate chaos will still cost at least $38 trillion a year by 2050.”
Renewables he noted, “already make up thirty percent of the world’s electricity supply. And clean energy investments reached a record high last year – almost doubling in the last ten years. Wind and solar are now growing faster than any electricity source in history. And economic logic makes the end of the fossil fuel age inevitable.”
The only questions, Guterres said are: “Will that end come in time? And will the transition be just?”
The G20 countries, he stressed, “produce eighty percent of global emissions” and they “have the responsibility, and the capacity, to be out in front.”
He said, “advanced G20 economies should go furthest, fastest; And show climate solidarity by providing technological and financial support to emerging G20 economies and other developing countries.”
The Secretary-General said, “it is a disgrace that the most vulnerable are being left stranded, struggling desperately to deal with a climate crisis they did nothing to create. We cannot accept a future where the rich are protected in air-conditioned bubbles, while the rest of humanity is lashed by lethal weather in unliveable lands.”
He said, “it is high time to put an effective price on carbon and tax the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies. By COP29, we need early movers to go from exploring to implementing solidarity levies on sectors such as shipping, aviation, and fossil fuel extraction – to help fund climate action. These should be scalable, fair, and easy to collect and administer. None of this is charity. It is enlightened self-interest.”
Noting that “many governments restrict or prohibit advertising for products that harm human health – like tobacco,” he urged “every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies.”
He also urged news media and tech companies “to stop taking fossil fuel advertising.”
Guterres said, “we must also deal with the demand side. All of us can make a difference, by embracing clean technologies, phasing down fossil fuels in our own lives, and using our power as citizens to push for systemic change.”
After the Secretary-General delivered his speech, he held a short conversation with independent journalist Femi Oke.
He told Oke that, “there is a risk of reaching a tipping point in relation to the melting of Greenland, the West Antarctic, in relation to coral reefs in large part of the earth, the oceans, a serious risk in relation to permafrost and what we are already witnessing in the Arctic areas, and a huge risk about the Labrador currents and we all know the impact that it can have in relation to the weather in Europe.”
