Guteresre said the summit’s list of priorities was to maintain the goal set at the 2015 UN climate conference in Paris to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
Calling for the decarbonisation of global economies and the phasing out of coal, he said world leaders needed “maximum ambition” to make the summit a success.
“It’s time to say ‘Enough,'” Guteresre told world leaders in Glasgow.
“It’s enough to treat biodiversity brutally. It’s enough to kill yourself with carbon. It’s enough to treat nature like a toilet. It’s enough to burn and drill and mine to go even deeper. We dig our own graves,” Guteresre said.
COP26 is under great tension over lack of funding and unequal access to Covid-19 vaccines, which has prevented some delegates from attending the conference.
Guteresre called on rich countries to honor their promises to provide $ 100 billion a year in funding to help the poorest countries fight climate change.
He also urged world leaders to do more to protect vulnerable communities, adding that nearly four billion people have suffered from climate-related disasters in the past decade.
“This damage will only increase,” Guteresre said.
