During the presentation of the 2023 Emissions Gap Report, the UN chief pointed out the lack of leadership was another important cause of the current climate crisis.

The text, released on Monday by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), admits that unless countries step up climate action and deliver more than what was promised by 2030, the world is heading towards a temperature between 2.5 and 2.9 degrees.

“The emissions gap looks more like a canyon riddled with broken promises, broken lives and broken records,” the UN secretary-general warned in statements to reporters.

In this regard, he recalled that renewable energies have never been cheaper or more accessible, in a call to finally discard the use of fossil fuels.

In her turn, UNEP Director Inger Andersen warned that no person or economy is being left out of the climate crisis.

Speaking from Nairobi, Kenya, she stressed the urgent need to stop setting unwanted records for greenhouse gas emissions, global maximum temperatures and extreme weather conditions.

Instead, “we must stop the old pattern of ambition and insufficient action, and start setting other records: on emissions reductions, on green and fair transitions, and on climate finance,” she called.

The 2023 Emissions Gap Report was released 10 days before the start of the COP28 Climate Change Conference in Dubai.

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