The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, defended this Wednesday the responsibility of the oil companies that knew, in the 1970s, that they were destroying the planet, in a similar way to what was done with the tobacco industry.
“The big oil companies rode on big lies,” Guterres accused, in his speech at the Davos Economic Forum, which is taking place this week in Switzerland, arguing that whoever did it “must be held accountable.”
According to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, “some fossil fuel producers were fully aware, in the 1970s, that their product was burning up the planet, but, as [aconteceu] in the tobacco industry, bypassed the science.”
Still today, Guterres stressed, “fossil fuel producers try to increase production knowing full well that this business model is incompatible with human survival.”
For the UN leader, humanity is “playing with [a possibilidade de haver um] environmental disaster”.
“Every week there is a new climate horror story. Greenhouse gas emissions are at record levels, but they continue to rise,” she warned, noting that the commitment to slow the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius is fading.
“If we don’t take more action, we are going to have a 2.8 degree rise and the consequences of this, as we all know, will be devastating,” he warned.
“Many parts of our planet will cease to be habitable and, for many, this will be a death sentence,” he added, stressing, however, that “this is not a surprise.”
The science, the representative stressed, “has been clear for decades,” but many chose not to follow the recommendations.
A situation that António Guterres admitted “seems like science fiction”, referring, however, that “these are the hard and crude facts”.
Guterres also considered that problems must be faced head-on.
“We are in the eye of a category 5 hurricane,” he said, reiterating that the world scenario shows “a perfect storm in many ways.”
“In the short term we have a global economic crisis,” with “many regions of the world facing recession and the entire world suffering a slowdown.” [económico]”, she said, adding that “the many inequalities and the crisis are affecting women and girls above all” throughout the world.
Source: TSF
