UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that without further action, humanity will be on track to increase global temperatures by 2.8 degrees Celsius.
Sean Gallup | News Getty Images | Getty Images
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday blasted fossil fuel giants for neglecting their own climate science, accusing the oil and gas industry of wanting to expand production even though it knows “full well” that their business model is incompatible with human survival.
“Some in Big Oil have been peddling a lot of lies,” Guterres said during a special address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “And like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held accountable.”
His comments come shortly after a study showed how Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s largest oil companies, accurately predicted global warming as early as the 1970s, then publicly contradicted its own research for decades.
A study published last week in the journal Science says Exxon’s private projections of global temperature rise are often more accurate than top NASA scientists. Exxon, meanwhile, has denied the allegations.
Research papers have already found that Exxon has been aware of the dangers of global warming since the late 1970s, while other oil industry bodies have known about the risks of burning fossil fuels since at least the 1950s.
The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas is the main driver of the climate emergency.
“Every week brings a new climate horror story,” Guterres said, noting that the pledge to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels had “gone up in smoke”. This temperature threshold is the desired goal set out in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
It is recognized as crucial because at this stage so-called tipping points are more likely. These are the threshold values at which small changes can cause dramatic shifts in the entire Earth’s life support system.
Guterres said that without further action, humanity will be on track to increase global temperatures by 2.8 degrees Celsius.
“The consequences will be devastating. More parts of our planet will be uninhabitable. And for many, it’s a death sentence,” he said.
“But this is not a surprise,” Guterres said. “The science has been clear for decades. I’m not just talking about UN scientists. I’m even talking about fossil fuel scientists.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently denounced what he described as “a massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny”.
Sean Gallup | News Getty Images | Getty Images
Regarding the research, published last week in Science, Guterres said: “Like the tobacco industry, they have tampered with their own science.”
“Today, fossil fuel producers and their holders are still competing to expand production, knowing full well that this business model is not compatible with human survival,” he continued.
“This madness belongs in science fiction, but we know that ecosystem collapse is cold, hard scientific fact.”
The world’s leading climate scientists warned last year that the fight to keep global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees Celsius had reached “now or never” territory. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reaffirmed calls for significant reductions in fossil fuel consumption to curb global warming.
