{"id":32793,"date":"2020-01-15T15:23:06","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T14:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/?p=32793"},"modified":"2020-01-15T15:25:08","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T14:25:08","slug":"antonio-guterres-european-green-capital-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/antonio-guterres-european-green-capital-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Ant\u00f3nio Guterres: \u201cWar against nature is suicidal\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Humanity has been waging a \u201csuicide war\u201d against nature, because nature \u201cresponds many times, as we have seen through hurricanes, fires, and severe drought in various regions of the world,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sg\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres<\/a> said at the opening ceremony designating Lisbon as the European Green Capital.<\/p>\n<p>The Secretary-General emphasized that it is wrong to think we are destroying the planet. For Guterres, no matter how much we harm the planet, \u201cit will continue to spin around the sun for millions of years.\u201d The problem is that \u201chumanity is destroying itself and the possibility of being able to live on the planet, he explained.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Turning year<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In his remarks, the Secretary-General also clarified that <a href=\"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/un-secretary-generals-2020-new-years-message\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2020 could be the year to make the fight against climate change more efficient<\/a>. He identified three opportunities to start breaking the \u201ccycle of war, which we are waging against nature\u201d:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Conference<\/em>\u00a0of\u00a0<em>Parties<\/em>\u00a0to the\u00a0<em>Convention<\/em>\u00a0on\u00a0<em>Biological Diversity<\/em><\/li>\n<li>The 2020 UN Ocean Conference to be held in Lisbon in June<\/li>\n<li>COP26, where countries can pledge concrete measures to combat climate change<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Guterres pointed out that all these major events will take place during Lisbon\u2019s presidency as the Green Capital of Europe, which comes at a time when there are three battles that are being lost:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A time when one million species are at risk of disappearing<\/li>\n<li>Increasing pollution, especially plastics, in the ocean<\/li>\n<li>Ensuring the Paris Agreement is an effective tool to fight climate change<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Hope<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The UN Secretary-General, however, expressed optimism because the international community knows what needs to be done. \u00a0There is \u201cno reason to continue to rely on fossil fuels,\u2019\u2019 when other technologies already exist. He also stressed that another hopeful development is the growing mobilization of youth that demands \u201cpolitical will to drive these transformations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>This article was originally published by UNRIC, the United Nations Regional Information Centre in Brussels. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Humanity has been waging a \u201csuicide war\u201d against nature, because nature \u201cresponds many times, as we have seen through hurricanes, fires, and severe drought in various regions of the world,\u201d UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres said at the opening ceremony designating Lisbon as the European Green Capital. The Secretary-General emphasized that it is wrong to think [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}