2019 UN Climate Action Summit

The 2019 UN Climate Action Summit was held at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 23 September 2019. The target of the summit was to advance climate action for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the mean global temperature from rising by more than 1.5 degrees above preindustrial level. Sixty countries were expected to "announce steps to reduce emissions and support populations most vulnerable to the climate crisis" including France, a number of other European countries, small island countries and India. To increase pressure on political and economic actors for achieving the aims of the summit, a Global Climate Strike was held around the world on 20 September with over 4 million people in attendance.

Greta Thunberg attendance

In mid-August 2019, climate activist Greta Thunberg sailed from Plymouth to the United States to first participate in the UN Climate Action Summit, before heading to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Chile in December. She took a boat instead of an airplane. Speaking on September 23, Thunberg opened her statement to the General Assembly with an impassioned and emotional commentary which was widely covered by the media.

"This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be standing here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to me for hope? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!"

At her appearance, Thunberg announced that she and 15 other children including Alexandria Villaseñor, Catarina Lorenzo, and Carl Smith were filing a lawsuit against five nations that are not on track to meet the emission reduction targets they committed to in their Paris Agreement pledges: Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey. The lawsuit is challenging the nations under the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child (specifically the right to life, health, and peace). If the complaint is successful, the countries will be asked to respond, but any suggestions aren’t legally binding.

Following her appearance US President Donald Trump, who had attended the meeting for 10 minutes and then left, tweeted a video of her opening remarks in which she is obviously emotionally distressed and commented, "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!"

Results

The results of the summit were very big and impressionant, even thought, they are not enough to limit the rise of global temperature to less than 1.5 degrees. Important commitments were made in many areas. The organizers declared that " Summit initiatives were designed to ensure the actions undertaken would be fair for all, supporting jobs and clear air for better health, and protect the most vulnerable, as well as new initiatives on adaptation, agriculture and early warning systems that will protect 500 million additional people against the impacts of climate change"

Governmental commitments

• 77 countries pledged to cut Greenhouse gas emission to zero by the year 2050, including Germany.
• Many small countries, including Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries were among the states who made the biggest steps.
• France pledged to not enter into a trade deal with a country that have policies against the Paris Agreement.

Cities

• Over 100 cities pledged to take new significant action to stop climate change.

See also

• Voyage of Greta Thunberg
• September 2019 climate strikes

External links

The UN climate action summit – as it happenedTemplate:Greta Thunberg