New York, September 23
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said the recent disaster in Nepal has demonstrated the reality of the climate risks he warned about three years ago from the foot of Mount Everest.
Addressing the opening of the general debate of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Guterres recalled his visit to Nepal in 2023, when he warned that the world’s glaciers were melting at an alarming rate.
“Three years ago, from the mountains of Nepal, I warned that the roof of the world was collapsing,” Guterres said, referring to the rapid melting of glaciers.
He said some had dismissed such warnings as exaggerated, but recent events in Nepal showed that the severe impacts of climate change were emerging sooner and spreading more widely than many had expected.
Guterres said the risks posed by climate change had become a reality, while the countries least responsible for global emissions were bearing some of the greatest costs.
“Polluters must pay. Vulnerable countries suffering the impacts must receive justice,” he said, calling for greater climate justice and financial support from wealthy countries.
He also criticised the limited resources available to address climate-related loss and damage.
The loss and damage fund has “shamefully little money”, Guterres said, arguing that it needs to be adequately financed and that vulnerable countries should not face further exploitation. He called on developed countries to honour their climate finance commitments, triple adaptation finance and scale up the loss and damage fund.
Guterres said the impacts of climate change were falling most heavily on those least responsible for causing it.
“One generation is consuming the future of another, while one group is making profits,” he said.
He also criticised major fossil fuel companies, saying the industry had treated the atmosphere as an “open sewer” while profiting from the consequences.
Guterres said the contrast between fossil fuel profits and climate finance available to developing countries demonstrated the inequity at the heart of the climate crisis.
‘Faultlines in the world are widening’
Guterres also warned that international rules and institutions were under growing pressure.
“The faultlines in our world are widening. Cracks have become canyons,” he told the General Assembly.
He said conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar reflected a world in which power was increasingly escaping established international constraints.
Guterres described Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a clear violation of the UN Charter and called for international law to be upheld consistently. He also stressed the need to comply with orders of the International Court of Justice.
He called for reforms to the international financial system to ease the debt burden facing developing countries.
On emerging technologies, Guterres said technology itself was not inherently dangerous, but warned that technology without accountability could be.
“Life and death decisions must never be handed to machines,” he said, calling for a complete ban on lethal autonomous weapons.
Guterres is in the final year of his term as UN secretary-general. He said he would continue working to defend the UN Charter, international law and peace.
The general debate of the 81st UN General Assembly began in New York on Tuesday and is being held under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations That Delivers for All.”
The General Assembly is scheduled to continue its high-level debate through September 28.
Nepal Prime Minister Balendra Shah is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Thursday. Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal, Foreign Secretary Amrit Rai and Nepal’s Permanent Representative to the UN Lok Bahadur Thapa are also participating in the high-level week.
